THE 



lorse DisGOverij of JimeiiGH 



WITH 



Some Reference to Its True 
Significance. 






AN HISTORICAL THESIS. 



BY 



HAROLD W. FOGHT, A. M., 

Professor of History and Political Science 
in Blair College, 



DANISH LUTHERAN PUBLISHING HOUSE, 
BLAIR, NEBRASKA. 

1901. 






Copyrighted 1901. 

By Harold W. Foght. 

Blair, Nebraska. 



^ocaitfod from 

Copyrtght OfPicQ. 
WB23I910 



TO 
MY •*• WIFE 

Who, tho' American-born, Is a True Norsewoman, Having- 

Descended, on Mother's Side, from the Haskells, 

Who Sprang-, in Many Generations, from 

the Yorkshire Hascarls and Hus- 

carls, and These again from 

the Early-day Tor- 

kel Huskarl of 

Norway 

I Dedicate This Little Book. 



Introductory. 



The following pages contain, in substance, my 
Thesis for the degree of A. M. in Augustana 
College, Rock Island, Illinois. A handful of copies 
were printed for the library of this school and, 
upon the solicitation of friends, a number of addi- 
tional copies were prepared for general distribu- 
tion. The paper lays no claims whatsoever to 
having exhausted this very important and in- 
teresting subject. It represents the work of a few 
leisure moments of a busy teacher — nothing more. 
It is my earnest hope, in the near future, to find 
the time necessary to complete a more pretentious 
volume on this subject, the beginnings of which 
have already been made. 

The typographical errors that have found 
their way into these pages are much deplored by 
the author, who asks the kind indulgence of his 
readers. 

Blair, Nebr., June, 1901. 

H. W. F. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE YIKIXG AGE. 

PAGES. 

The Battle of Braavalla, ca. 700 A. D.— The Vik- 
ings— Causes of the Viking Expeditions— The 
Three Kinds of Vikings— Contributions of the 
Northmen to the Political Life of Europe- 
Extent of the Viking Conquests 1-10 

CHAPTER II. 

THE EXODUS TO 1CELA:XD. 

Norway— The Exodus of 872— The Settlement of 
Iceland, 874— Rejkjavik Founded, 877— Iceland- 
ic Law Courts— The Government of Iceland- 
Iceland, a Literary Center 11-22 

CHAPTER III. 

THE RhLIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 

How the Sagas Originated— The Sagas Committed 
to Writing, between lOCO and 1200 A. D.— John 
Fiske's Defence of the Word "Sagas"— Erik the 
Red's Saga— Thorfinn Karlsefni's Saga— The 
Historical Agreement of the Two Versions- 
Incidental References to Vmland from Other 
Sources 23-32 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 

Hvitramannaland Discovered, 928— Greenland Set- 
tled, 986— Greenland, the Anti-Chamber to the 
American Mainland— B jar ni Herjulfsson and 
the New West Land— Leif Eriksson's Expedi- 
tion Sets Sail, 1000— Helluland, Its Location— 
Markland, Its Location— Leif Eriksson's Win- 
ter in Vinland the Good— Unavailing Attempts 
to Seek the Exact Latitude of Vinland— Vin- 
land Named 33-48 

CHAPTER V. 

ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION AND COLONI- 
ZATION. 

Thorvald Eriksson's Expedition, 1002— Thorstein 
Eriksson's Attempts to Reach Vinland, 1005— 
Thorfinn Karlsefni's Colony, 1007-10- A Bloody 
Chapter of Vinland History, 1011-12 49-60 

CHAPTER VI. 

ALLUSIONS TO VINLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 

"Libellus Islandorum"— T h e Heimskringla— The 
Eyrbyggja Saga— Grettis Saga— Other Mention 
of Vinland— Early Geographical Treatises 61-69 

CHAPTER Vll. 

THE DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GRELNLAND 

COLONIES. 

Development of the Greenland Settlements— The 
Northernmost Limit of Norse Exploration in 
America— Causes Leading to the Destruction 
of the Greenland Colonies — Nicolo Zeno in 
Greenland, 1394— The Great Missionary Hans 
Egede in Greenland, 1721— The Greenland Ruins 70-80 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE LAST OF YINLAND. 

Antonio Zeno's Voyage of Discovery, ca. 1400— Ad- 
ventures in Estotiiand— Norambega, or Norvega 
— Prof. Horsford's Summary — The Stony Brook 
Inscription — A Kesume of Prof. Horsford's Ar- 
guments — The Fisherman's Description of 
Drogio— A Summary on Estotiiand, Norum- 
bega and Drogio 81-96 

CHAPTER IX. 

A GENERAL SUMMAEY OF THE QUESTION. 

What Has Been Established beyond a Shadow of 
Doubt— What Overzealous Antiquarians Have 
Accomplished for the Cause — The Ridiculous 
Attacks upon Columbus— The Keal Truth— Ir- 
respective of Results the Norse Discovery of 
America Was Every Bit as Much a i rue Dis- 
covery as Was that of Columbus — Leif Eriksson 
Holds the Priority Claim to the Discovery of 
America — The True Light in Which to View 
the Norse Discovery 97-110 

CHAPTER X. 

THK DISCOVERY VIEWED IN ITS RELATIONS TO 
THE GREAT AVORLD MIGRATIONS. 

The Aryan Migration— The Aryan Migration not 
yet Ended— The Teutonic vs. the Romance 
Nations— The Genesis of the English-Speaking 
Nations — The Northern Sailors Lead the Teu- 
tonic World Movement across the Atlantic 111-117 

CHAPTER XL 

SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

Danish and Norwegian Place Names— Tabular 
View of Some of the Most Important Danish- 



Norwegian Xames of Places in Kngland— An 
Explanation of Dr. Worsaae's Table— Auster- 
tield and Scrooby Mark the Starting Point from 
Which the Puritan Exodus Went forth— Exist- 
ing Ties of Good Will between Englishmen and 
Scandinavians— Featural Likenesses of English- 
men and Scandinavians — The Danish-Norwe- 
gian Element in English— A Short List of 
Words Taken from the Provincial English, with 
Danish Equivalents— Scandinavian Surnames 
Ending in son or sen— The Case of Admiral 
Horatio Nelson— The Northmen, and English 
Love for the Sea— Norse Law in England— The 
Norse Origin of the Jury System— The North- 
men in Scotland and Ireland— The Isle of Man; 
Its Place Names, Kunes, TniNG-hill, etc.— A 
Re-capitulation 118-142 

CHAPTER XII. 

SCANDI:N AVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED 
STATES. 

The Importance of the Eastern Counties in the 
Puritan Revolution; the Part They Played in 
the Puritan Exodus— The Sailing of the May- 
flower, 1620 — The Probable Scandinavian 
Origin of George Washington— Modern North- 
men in the L^nited States — Scandinavian-Amer- 
icans as Citizens— To Sum up Our Arguments. . 143-152 



A Bibliography 

OF 

Some cP the Chief Works Referred to in the 
Following Pages with Other Impor- 
tant Books on the Discovery . 
Question. 



1076. Adam von Bremen. "Historia Ecclesiastica 

Ecclesiarum Hamburgensis et Bremensis.'' 

Copenhagen. 
Before 1334. Hank Erlendsson. '*The Hauks- 

bok." Iceland. 
Between 1388 and 1395. JonThordharsson. ''The 

Flate3^ar-b6k." Iceland. 

1642. Hugo Grotius. "Dissertatio de Origine 
Gentium Americanarum." Paris. 

1643. Arngrim Jonsson. "Specimen Islandiae His- 
toricum." Amsterdam. 

1*^05. Thormodus Torfeus. "Historia Vinlandiae 

Anticpiae. Havniae. 
1706. Thormodus Torlseus. ' Historia Gronlan- 

diae Antiquae." Havniae. 
1817. Conrad Malte-Brun. "Histoire de la 

Geographie." Paris. 
1820. David Cranz. "The History of Greenland'' 

(best edition). Pondon. 



1833. Finn Magnussen. "Nordisk Tidsskrift for 
Oldkyndighed." Copenhagen. 

1834. T. Campanius. "Description of the Prov- 
ince of New Sweden." Philadelphia. 

1836. Zahrtmann. "Journal of Geographical 
Societ3^" London. 

1837. Karl Christian Rafn. "Antiquitates Amer- 
icanae." Copenhagen. 

1837. Alex. Humbolt. "Examen Critique/' etc. 
Paris. 

1838. "The Royal Geographical Society." London. 
184L Augustin Thierr3^ "Conquest of England 

b3^ the Normans." London. 

1842. K. Wilhelmi. "Island, Hvitramannaland, 
Gronland und Yinland, oder, der Normanner 
Leben auf Island und Gronland und deren 
Fahrten nach America schon iiber 500 Jahre 
vor Columbus." 

1844. Samuel Laing. "Translation of the Heims- 
kringla." London. 

1852. Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae. "The Danes 
and Northmen in England, Scotland and Ire- 
land." London. 

1860. Schoolcraft. "Archives of Aboriginal Know- 
ledge." Philadelphia. 

1862. N. M. Petersen. "Historiske Fbrtaellinger 
om Islaendernes Fasrd ude og hjemme." Copen- 
hagen. 

1866. Paul Sinding. "History- of Scandinavia." 
etc. London. 

1868. B. F. De Costa. "The Pre-Columbian Dis- 
covery of America by the Northmen." Alban3^ 



1873. Richard H. Major. "The Voyages of the 
Venetian Brothers, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno." 
London. 

1876. G. W. Dasent. ''Des Antiquaires du Nord." 
London. 

1876. WilHam Cullen Brj^ant and Sidney Howard 
Gaj. "A Popular History of the United 
States," etc. New York. 

1877. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. "A Book 
of American Explorers . ' ' Boston. 

1877. E. F. Slafter, Editor. ''Voyages of the 
Northmen in America." Boston. 

1879. Albert Welles. "The Pedigree and History 
of the Washington Family." New York. 

1880. F. Metcalfe. ''Tne Englishman and the 
Scandinavian." London. 

1887. Gnstav Storm. "Studier over Vinlandsrei- 
seme." Copenhagen. 

1888. Marie Brown (Shipley). ''The Icelandic 
Discoverers of America." Boston. 

1889. John Fiske. "The Beginnings of New Eng- 
land." Boston. 

1889. Paul Du Chaillu. "The Viking Age." Lon- 
don. 

1890. Rasmus B. Anderson. "America not Dis- 
covered by Columbus" (revised edt.). Chicago. 

1890. E. Norton Horsford. "The Problem of the 
Norsemen." Boston. 

1890. Arthur M. Reeves. "The Finding of Wine- 
land the Good." London. 

1891. E. Norton Horsford. "Defences of Norum- 
bega." Boston. 



1892. Harrisse. ''The Discovery of North America." 

1893. Joh. A. Enander. "Nordmannen i Amer- 
ika." Rock Island. 

1895. Hjalmar H. Bojesen. ''The Story of Nor- 
way." New York. 
1895. Sarah Orne Jewett. "The Story of the 

Normans." New York. 
1897. OHver Farrar Emerson. "The History of 

the English Language." New York. 
1900. John Fiske. "The Discover^^ of America" 

(last edition). Boston. 
1900. O. N. Nelson. "History of Scandinavians 

and Biographies." (second revised edition). 

Minneapolis. 
1900. Gustav Storm. "Snorre Sturlasons Kon- 

gesagaer." Christiania,. 



Some Characteristics of the 
Viking Age. 



"No more 
The raven from the northern shore 
Hails the bold crew to push for pelf, 
Through fire and blood and slaughtered kings 
'Neath the black terror of his wings." 

—Francis Turner Palgraye. 

During the early part of the eighth centur\',* 
say the saga-men, f the hosts of Sweden and 
Denmark met on Braavalla Heath to fight for the , 
supremacy of the North. This Trojan plain of 
Scandinavian myth lay close by the river Bra a 
in East Gautland on the Baltic. $ Gods and 
demi-gods took a hand in the struggle. Yal- 

*The exact date is uncertain; it was probabl^^ about 
the year 700 A. D . 

tOur best references are to the Hervarar Saga and 

the SOGUBROT. 

JThe battle here iought marks the beginning of the 
end of the Mythic Age in the North. After this gov- 
ernments become better organized and many unrul}' 
spirits are forced to seek foreign climes in quest of 
such lawless adventures as they can no longer hope to 
encounter at home. With this mile-stone we maj^ con- 
sider the Viking Age to begin. Some authorities, as 
for example Du Chaillu, argue that it commenced 
away back in the second century. Cf. Paul Chaillu 
The Viking Age, Vol. I., page 26. 



SOME CHARACTERIvSTICS OF THE VIKIXG AGE. 



kA'Hes* dashed through the misty heavens^ 

choosing their victims. Heroes fought one anoth- 

Tlie Battle ^^ ^^^^ died, and \vere car- 

of Braavaila, ca. ried home to the jo3^s of Valhal. 
Odin, with his own hands, 
slew the aged and bHnd Harald Hildetand, king 
of Danes, and gave victory to the youthful King 
Sigurd Ring. Throughout the plain the dead lay 
heaped to the axles of the chariot wheels, and the 
shades of night sank upon the exhausted earth. 

This, say the skalds, was the last time Odin ap- 
peared among men. From this time forth, our 
forefathers must needs depend on their owai per- 
sonal valor and good brawn for victory. For the 
gods returned to Yalhal and their mead- feasts, and 
were satisfied with watching the battle from 
afar.t Before this time the Northmen were strang- 
ers to the histor^^ of civilized Europe. But now 
they commenced to pour their devastating hordes 
over the continent and the islands, spreading 
terror before them as they advanced and leaving 
naught save desolation and death in their wake. 
These were unruh^ times, fit only for men of blood. 
So terrible was the Northern scourge that the 
terrorized Christian nations daily prayed the 

*These were the hand-maidens of Odin, who were 
sent bj^ him to decide the battles of men. . 

tXhis indicates that the Northmen w^ere already be- 
ginning to disbelieve in the gods of Valhalla. It was 
common, from this time on, to hear of heroes who re- 
lied on nothing save their own strength and courage. 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VIKING AGE. 3 

Lord to deliver them.* But back of all their 
brutal impulses the invaders hid manj^ noble quali- 
ties, which later put such an indelible stamp up- 
on their progeny in England and America. Even 
their enemies, and their monkish chroniclerst who 
hated them so well, agreed in this, that the 
Northern robbers were ''faithful 
^** to their oaths and kept their 
promises." It is also worthy of notice, that 
wherever the Vikings settled they became the most 
law-abiding citizens of the land;t and when they 
chanced to return to their native home, they gen- 
erally rose to the rank of influencial, respected 
citizens. The seed of civilization was in them; but, 
as ''religion in those days was tribal, and moral- 
it3^ had no application outside the tribe," we 
should hardly expect to find this morality prac- 
ticed to any extent beyond tlieir own kinsmen. 

♦The French church litany has it: "A furore North- 
mannoruni libera nos, o Doinine!" 

f'li we tty to get the story of the Northmen from the 
French or British chroniclers it is one long dreary 
complaint of their barbarous customs and their heath- 
en religion. In England the monks, shut up in their 
monasteiies, could find nothing bad enough to say 
about the marauders who ravaged the shores of the 
country and did so much mischief. If we believe 
them we shall mistake the Norwegians and their com- 
panions for wild beasts and heathen savages." — Sarah 
Orne Jewett, The Story of the Normans, p. 9. 

JPerhaps no other one characteristic is so marked in 
the Scandinavian as his respect for authoritJ^ And 
this is not through cringing fear, as so often manifest- 
ed among baser peoples, but through voluntary sub- 
ordination for the common welfare. 



4 SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VIKING AGE. 

The belief that only the brave, dying with sword 
in hand, would find a seat among the Einherjer,* 
coupled with the crowded condition of the North- 
ern lands, w^hich were as yet but poorh^ developed 
economicalh^ was the chief cause of these Viking ex- 
peditions. War wdth the Northmen v^as a pro- 
fession, considered b3^ them honorable beyond all 
other occupations. By degrees as the "small 

^ ^ ^. kiners" at home became more 

Causes of the r -, ■, i • r 

Viking- poweriul, many lesser chiefs 

Expeditions. ^ycre left in a cramped condition. 
At last there remained but the choice between 
vassalage and the friendly sea. But as freedom 
was dearer to the Northmen's heart than life itself, 
thQj spread their square sails to the storm- wind, 
and trusting to the kind fates of the deep, set out 
in quest of adventures and new fire-sides. They 
w^ere never lost: 

"Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, 
Purvey our empire and behold our home." 

The3^ were as much at home in Britain as in 
France, in Sicily as in Miklagaard.t The Viking 
sword w^as turned against all men. In turn they 

*i. e. great champions. Fallen heroes chosen by 
Odin to be his guests. 

ti. e. Byzantium, or Constantinople. "In Byzantium they 
are the leaders of the Greek emperor's body guard, and the 
main support of his tottering throne. From France, led by 
Kollo, they tear away her fairest province and found a long 
line of kings. In Saxon England they are the bosom friends 
of such kings as Athelstane, and the sworn foe of Ethelred 
the Unreaay. In Danish England they are the foremost 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VIKING AGE. 5 

were regarded a universal enemy. Under the 
struggle lor survival, it was give and take — no 
favor was asked, no quarter was granted. Such 
men knew no fear save the fear of pale Hel; they 
rejoiced in the storm-wind, and laughed aloud in 
the face of certain death. 

The Viking cruises were at first hardly more 
than sea-robbery, pursued for the booty to be 
gained. Small bands attacked and plundered iso- 
lated towns and monasteries, and then made good 
a hasty retreat v/ith the ill-gotten spoil. Later 
on, as they became more skilled in military arts, 
the Vikings sailed in larger companies, led by he- 
roes of noble birth. Commanding points on the 
invaded shore were seized and fortified, and from 
these places of vantage harrying expeditions were 
sent into the adjacent country. By degrees Viking 
life took on a nobler form. Men of high rank, of- 
ten of ro3^al blood, gathered renowned fighters 
under their banners, and abandoning pirac3^ as 
The Three Kinds tinworthy of their attention, as- 
of Vikings. sumed the role of conquerors 
and colonizers. Peaceable merchants and traders 



among the thanes of Canute, Swein and Hardicanute, and 
keep down the native population with an iron heel. Jn 
Normnn England the most serious opposition the conquer- 
or meets with is from the colonists of his own race settled 
in Xorthumbria, He wastes their lands with fire and 
sword, and drives them across the border, where we still 
find their energy, their perseverance, and their speech ex- 
isting in the lowland .Scotch."— G. W. Dasent, Des An- 

TIQUAIKES DU NORD. 



6 SOME CHARACTERISTICS OE THE YIKIXG AGE. 

were spared ; and they sometimes even fought and 
exterminated their less scrupulous, plundering 
brethren. With such heroes wealth was deemed 
of smaller consequence than a name renowned for 
prowess in war. During this period of the Viking- 
Age, knightly valor became very marked. A cer- 
tain code of honor* was enforced as rigidly then 
as later among the knightly Normans, who were 
direct descendents of our sea-kings. 

The last period of the age was marked by ex- 
tended conquest. The existence of entire nations 
was threatened, and in many instances whole 
provinces were seized and placed under the iron 
rule of the invaders. Now the breath of 
Northern vigor was infused into continental 
and insular political and social institutions. In- 
vigorated blood coursed through the impoverish- 
ed veins of the South, and foundations to modem 
nations were l.iid. 

* 'It is these conquering vikings," sa3's Boyesen? 



*A\^e are told that the royal youth Half forbade the use 
among his men of swords over two feet long. The glory of 
the combat lay, said he, not in the advantage of weapons, 
bat in personal valor. His men were not allowed to cap- 
ture women and children; and insults ottered women were 
punished with death. He never reefed his dragons under 
the hurricane blast; but sought the most exposed and storm- 
beaten cape where he would anchor and laugh at the ele- 
ments' important rage. Once when his ship was on the 
point of sinking, being filled by the angry waves, it became 
necessary to lighten its burden. As volunteers were called 
for, half the crew leaped to their watery graves, laughing 
and jesting as they sank! 



SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE YIKIXG AGE. 7 

^'who have demonstrated the historic mission of 

the North, and doubly indemnified the world for 

the miser3' they brought upon it. - The ability to 

endure discipline without loss of self-respect, 

voluntary subordination for mutual benefit, and 

^ t 'b f ^^^ power of orderly organiza- 

of the Northmen tion, based upon these qualities, 

to the Pohti- these were contributions of 

cal Ivif e of Kurope. ^ ^ -,..-, 

the Northmen to the political 

life of Europe."* A strong democratic spirit was 
from the earliest time fostered in the North. Re- 
sistance to tyraniw and freedom of thought and 
speech were very marked. The accused were tried 
by a jury of their peers ;t for personal rights were 
esteemed above all else. These too were contribu- 
tions to the political life of Europe — contributions 
which eventualh' found their way into the Eng- 
lish Magna Charta and the American Declaration 
of Independence. ? 



*Hjalmar H. Boyesen, The Story of Norway, p, 30. 

tWhile all the Teutonic people had law-courts where the 
accused might appear and make pubhc defence, it was the 
Scandinavians that first broucfht into England what was 
later called the jury system. With them men were from a 
very early day tried by a "jury of their peers." It is la- 
mentable, indeed, that our learned EngUsh, and more 
especially our learned American writers, are so lax in trac- 
ing the real origin of their own institutions and— family 
tree Even such an erudite scholar as Forsyth in his His- 
tory OF Jury Trial, is unable to distinguish between 
what in our law is Scandinavian and what is Anglo-Saxon. 

Jin this connection it is interesting to note that John 
Morton who cast the Pennsylvania vote in favor of the 
Declaration of Independence, was a Delaware Swede. 



8 SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VIKIXG AGE. 

The Northmen rapidty spread over a vast extent 
of territory. The Swedes turned their attention 
to the cotintries lying to the south and east of the 
Baltic. These Vaeringar, as they were called, pene- 
trated Gardarike, the present Russia, on their 
way to Miklagaard, where we hear of them in the 
service of the Greek emperors. It fell to the lot of 
Rurik the Swede* to name, and to lay the founda- 
tion of modern Russia, which took place in the 
3^ear 862. 

During the same age the Danes were making 
themselves very much at home in England, and 
penetrating far inland through the river-mouths 
of Germam^ and Gaul. In England they seized 
upon the best lands and there established them- 
selves as masters. For many generations fully 
one-third of all England was governed by Danish 
laws, and from 1017 to 1042 Danish kings held 
sway over the entire realm. "The Danes," sa3^s 
Laing,t ''must be the forefathers of as large a pro- 



*Thomsen telis us in his entertaining way the story of 
three brothers, Rurik, JSineus, and Truvor, who were invited 
from Sweden, and settled at Novgorod in 862. Says he, 
"according to some accounts these brothers were summon- 
ed by Gostomisl, a prominent Novgorodian; but the invita- 
tion of Rurik, Sineus, and Truvor is o: ly a Russian ex- 
planation of a Swedish invasion. The names are Scandi- 
navian. Rurik is the Old-Xorse for Ilraerekr; Sineus stands 
for Signiutr, and Truvor for Thorvardr."— Of. Thomson, 
The Relations between Ancient Russia and Scandi- 
navia. 

•f-Samuel Laing, Preface to his translation of the Heims- 
kringla. 



SOME characte:ristics of thp: viking age. 9 

portion of the present English nation as the Sax- 
ons themselves."* While their brothers were in 
this manner occupied in the East and South, the 
Norwegians were not idle. With an inborn love 
Extent of the ^^'^ adventure they struck boldly 
Vikino: out into the unknown western 

Conquests. ^^^^^ ^^^ pushed their way to 

every island and shore in the North Atlantic. 
They groped their wa^^ to the Orkneys, to the 
Shetlands and the Faroes; the^- settled the coasts 
of Scotland and founded kingdoms in Ireland. 
Later the^^ discoAxred Iceland and Greenland, and 
in the year 986 stumbled upon the mainland of 
America. Under Rolf GangerI' thev seized and 



*Du Chaillu inclines to the opinion that the early Saxon 
tribes in England were in reality tribes of iSucones (Swedes),. 
Danes and ^Norwegians; and that the Romans through 
ignorance mistook them for Saxons. His argument is 
based chiefly on the fact that the Scandinavians were from 
a very early day sea-farers. They scoured the North Sea 
and English Channel with their mighty fleets long before 
Charlemagne's time. And during his reign the Saxons and 
Franks were absolutely without naval protection. The 
Saxons had not a single vessel to retire to, or by help of 
which to hinder the Frankish conqueror from crossing their 
streams. "Though hardly more than three hundred years 
had elasped since the time when, according to the Roman 
writers, the fleets of the Franks and Saxons swarmed over 
every sea of Europe, not a vestige of their former maritime 
power remained in the time of Charlemagne, and the Sax- 
ons were still occupying the same country as in the days of 
Ptolomy."— Paul Du Chaillu, The Viking Age, Vol. I. p. 22. 

tit should be distinctly understood that Rolf was a Nor- 
wegian, though many of his followers were Danes and 
Swedes. He, like so many others, tell under the displeasure 
of Harold IIaakfager, and was forced to flee from Nor„ 



10 SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE VIKING AGE. 

settled fertile Normandy-, which soon took its 
place as one of the formidable powers of Europe. 
These Normans, as they were called in France, set 
up a Norman nation in Italy, and in the year 
1060, crossed the Channel and conquered all Eng- 
land. 



way. In the Hebrides he was joined by many of his coun- 
trymen, and together they rounded the coast of Scotland 
and steered for Holland. From these already thoroughly 
devastated coasts, the expedition continued through the 
Channel, and soon we see them sailing up the Seine and 
sounding their challenge under the very walls of Paris. Af- 
ter Rolf had taken Rouen, Bayeux and some other places, 
the helpless French king, Charles the Simple, made the fol- 
lowing offer which was accepted: "King Charles offers you 
his daughter in marriage, with the hereditary lordship of 
all the country situated between the river Epte and Brit- 
tany, if you consent to become a Christian, and to live in 
peace with his kingdom."— Mandans, si christianus efficere- 
tur, terram maritimam ab Epte flumine usque ad britan- 
nicos limites, cum sua filia nomine Gisla, se ei daturum 
fore— Willelmi Gemeticensis, Hist. Normann., apud 

SCRIPT. RER. Norm ANN., p. 231. 



The Exodus to Iceland. 



"Hail, Isle! with mist and snowstorms girt around, 

Where fire and earthquake rend the shattered ground, — 

Here once o'er furthest ocean's icy path 

The Northmen fled a tyrant monarch's wrath: 

Here, cheered by song and story, dwelt they free, 

And held unscathed their laws and liberty." 

— YiGA Glum's Saga. 

The earlj^ Norwegians, or Norsemen, were a re- 
markable race! They were restive, often violent 
daring in the extreme, and above all else, inde- 
pendent. They were like the elements that strug- 
gled about them, like their hardy motherland. 
An immense ridge of rocks heaped up by the early 
Jotuns,* pierced to its very heart by innumerable 
arms of the ocean. Lying high up under the polar 
star it has a wonderful, changeable nature. * "The 
ocean roars along its rock-bound coast, and dur- 
ing the long, dark winter the storms howl and 
rage, and hurl the waves in white showers of 
spraj^ against the sk3^ Great swarms 
of sea-birds drift like sno^^ over the 
waters and circle screaming around the loneh" cliffs. 
The aurora borealis flashes like a huge shining fan 

*The gods of Jotunheim, between whom and the Yalbal 
gods the bitterest enmity existed. A parallel to the Titans 
and Olympian gods of Greek mythology. 



12 THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 

over the northern heavens, and the stars glitter 
with a keen, frosty splendor. But in summer all 
this is changed as by a miracle. Then the sun 
shines warmh^, even within the polar circle; in- 
numerable wild flowers sprout forth, the swell- 
ing rivers dance singing to the sea, and the birches 
mingle their light-green foliage with the darker 

green of the pine, the ocean spreads 

like a great burnished mirror under the cloudless 
sky, the fishes leap, and the gulls and eider ducks 
rock tranquilly upon the shin^^ waters."* 

On account of the phj^sical characteristics of the 
soil, Norway was early divided into a number 
of small, independent districts, each ruled by its 
independent ''small king," or jarl. Halftan 
SvARTE of the renowned Ynglinge family ruled 
Yestfold and other small districts on the modern 
Christiania Fjord. Upon his death, in the year 
863, he was succeeded by his ten-year-old son 
Harold. But, ill-content with his heritage, this 
youthful ruler took a solemn oath never to cut 
his hair nor to comb his long, flaxen locks before 
he had gathered all Norway under his scepter. 
Ten years of war was required to complete 
the task. And King Harold, released from his 
oath, had leisure enough to tonsure his hair and 
beard — henceforth he was surnamed Haarfager, 
i. e. Fairhair. 



♦Hialmar H. Boyesen, The Story of Norway, p. 4. 



THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 13 

The great sea fight at HafrsQord made Harold 
master of Norway. Here a number of chiefs had 
assembled with all their retainers and arma- 
ments,^ vainly hoping by one united effort to 
crush the usurper of their ancient liberties. But 
Harold prevailed and "small king" rule was for- 
ever dead in Norway. The harshness of the new 
laws that were now imposed, together with heavy 
taxation, and Harold's confiscation of all odel, 
or public domain, were more than many of the 
The Exodus proud old chieftains cared to en- 
of 872. dure; so choosing freedom with- 

out a home-land in preference to thraldom under 
an upstart king, they embarked with their fami- 
lies and followers, and after solemn sacrifice to 
the gods, set sail to the westward. Many of the 
noblest and most renowned clans of the land thus 
went into voluntary exile,— here begins the great 
exodus of the year 872. 

The earliest inhabitants of Iceland appear to 



♦Thjodolf , one of King Harold's skalds, who was presen t 
describes the advent of the enemy in the following song: 

"Ladle var de med Haulder 
og hvide Skjolde, 
med vesterlandske Spyd 
og med valske Sv?erd. 
Berserker brolede, 
Kamp de haabede, 
Ulfhedner hylede, 
og Jernene gjaldede." 



14 THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 

have been Irish monks and anchorites,* who may 
have taken up their abode in the island soon after 
725. The first Scandinavians to visit Iceland 
were the Swede Gardar and the Norwegian Nadd- 
odd, or Nadod. The former, whose father at this 
time resided in Denmark, attempted a voyage to 
Scotland, round about the year of 860. In the 
dangerous Pentland Firth his ship w^as caught by 
a hurricane and carried far to the northw^ard. 
However, he made land on the east coast of Ice- 
land Avhere he found a safe haven. Gardar, who 
soon afterwards visited Norw^ay, is said to have 
been ver\^ laud in his praise of the island, ^vhich 
from him was called Gardarsholm. Nadod, Gar- 
dar's contemporary and rival for first honors, was 
also carried to Iceland by a gale. With his men 
he made an inland voyage, and scaled a lofty 
mountain wherefrom barren, uninhabited stretch- 
es of waste could be seen. This snowland, as he 
called it, had no charms for a Viking of Nadod 's 
caliber, and he too returned home soon. 

The navigator who next discovered the island, 
and who first called it by its present name, was 
the bold Floki Vilgerdson. He sailed from Raga- 
land in Norway and steered withotit hesitation 
into the unknown sea, depending for guidance on 



*Authorities from various sources agree in this, that Iris h 
religious orders dwelled in the Island when the Norsemen 
arrived. These papas, as the new-comers called them, left 
Iceland immediately upon the coming of the Scandinavians 



THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 15 

his consecrated ravens.* These were turned loose 

the one after the other; and the last one finding 

its bearings, led him to the land of his seeking. 

^u^ c^*+i 4- Floki spent two winters on the 

The Settltriiient ^ 

of Iceland, island, exploring and fishing. 
^'^' But ill content with the coun- 

tr}^ he abandoned his contemplated colonization 
and set sail for Norwa^^ Other participants in 
this expedition, on the contrary, were well pleased 
Avith Iceland, and declared the soil so rich that 
butter oozed from every straw in the land.t 

In this way the North became acquainted with 
the great Thule; though no efforts were made to 
settle it before after the battle of Hafrsfjord. The 
foster-brothers Ingolf and Hjorleif were forced to 
flee from Norway about this time, as a result of 
blood-feud and subsequent murder. They embark- 
ed at Fjordefylke with their families and thralls, 
and as many of their personal effects as could be con- 
veniently moved,*! and reached the eastern coast 

*The compass and astrolabe were of course unknown to 
the Northmen of the Viking Age. They depended for 
guidance solely upon the sun and the stars, and in cloudy 
weather, upon the flight of birds, usually ravens. 

jAn excellent discription of Iceland's physical appear- 
ance, accessible to readers of the Scandinavian languages, 
is found in N. M. Petersen's Hi storike Fort.ellinger 
OM ISL.ENDEKNEs F.EHD lIjKMME OG Ude. Copenhagen, 
18^.2. 

:}:The immigrants brought with them to Iceland not only 
personal effects but even such real estate as temples, etc., 
carried in sections. So thorough was this removal that the 
settlements are often spoken of as "det udflyttede Norge." 



16 THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 

of Iceland late in the j^ear 874. Within sight of 
land the ships carrying the foster-brothers became 
separated. Hjorleif was carried to the westward 
and landed at a headland which he called, after 
himself Hjorleifshofde. Here he was murderd 
the following spring by his Irish thralls. Ingolf 
was more fortunate than Hjorleif; it fell to his 
lot to become Iceland's real founder. On ap- 
proaching the shore, he threw overboard his conse- 
crated high-seat posts,* vowing to set up his 
abode wherever the gods might choose to cast 
them ashore. After spending the first winter at 
the socalled Ingolfshofde, he began the search for 
his posts. While thus engaged he came upon the 
bodies of his murdered kinsmen. As soon as he 
had buried the dead, one of the most sacred duties 
of the ancients, he hunted down the assasins and 
slew them all without mercy. The high-seat posts 
meanwhile drifted ashore at Rejkjanes, where the 



*Called Andveges-suler, or Set-stokker. They were 
the two carved wooden posts placed before the high-seat in 
the banquet hail and were symbolic of the chieftain's 
rank. 

"Through the whole length of the hall shone forth the table 

of oak wood, 
Brighter than steel, and polished; the pillars twain of the 

high seats 
Stood on each side thereof; two gods deep carved out of 

elm wood: 
Odin with glance of a king, and Frey with the sun on his 

forehead." — Frithiof's Saga, Ch. III., p. IS. 



THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 17 

owner found them after a search of three years. 
Rejkjavik In fulfilment of his vow Ingolf 

Founded, ^77. settled a place which he named 
Rejkjavik, now Iceland's thriftiest hamlet. 

The fame of the island's richness and great size 
soon drew other malcontents from Norwa\^, and 
betw^een the 3^ears 874 and 934, the famous Land- 
namstid,'^ all the habitable districts were peo- 
pled. Whole clans arrived, carrying with them 
the old Norse usages, traditions and laws. These 
emigrants w^ere among Norway's proudest sons, 
high born chiefs, many of them descended from 
kings and earls, bringing with them great wealth 
and culture. His own dwelling completed, a 
chief's first duty was to erect a temple, or Hoy, to 
his household gods. It was common enough to 
hear of Hoy-men w-ho brought along from Nor- 
-way portions of the temple wood-work, together 
with hallowed earth scraped from the spot where 
the altar had stood. Near the temple it was cus- 
tomary to locate the Thing,! or general assise. 
For man^^ years the most renowned ol these as- 
sises w^as the Kjalarnes-thing. Thither throng- 



*At the close of these sixty years, the island's population 
was larger than it has been at any period since that time. 

tThe Thing was both legislative and judicial. All free- 
holders had a voice in the deliberations. In Iceland Tpiing 
was held twice a year — a four days' session in the spring of 
the year, and a short autumn session. The Althing, or 
general Thing, convened during the summer and lasted, 
generally, fourteen days. 



18 THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 

ed the colonists to have their differences adjusted, 
and to sit as jurors or to act as witnesses. But its 
fame vaned for one reason and another, and the 
Icelanders began to clamor for some authorized 
common court. To mend this want, the aged 
wise-man Ulfljot undertook a voyage to Norw^ay, 
where he remained three 3^ears, stud3^ing the laws 
Icelandic of that countrA^ under the guid- 

Law Courts, ^^^^ ^^ Thorleif the Wise. The 
code — the Ulfljot lav^^ — was read to the assembled 
people at the Althing,* located henceforth at 
Thingvalla,t in the year 928. Within the first 
half century succeeding the creation of the Al- 
thing, Iceland became organized under a uniform 
civil government. The whole island was divided 
into Quarters, these Quarters again into Things 
and each Thing in turn embraced three or more 
Godords, or temple districts, constituting a sort 
of lower coLirt, while thirt3''-six judges elected in 
each Quarter constituted its district court. The 
Fifth-court, an organization resembling our 



*"The Althing was placed where it is now, according to 
the advise of Ulfljot and all the men of the land. Before this 
the Thing was at Kjalarnes, established by Thorstein, son of 
Ingolf, the (first) settler, and father of Thorkel Mani (moon), 
lawman, and other chiefs."--Islendingabok. 

jThingvalle, or Thingvalla (Thing-plain) is situated on 
the OxAR-AA (Ox river) in southwestern Iceland, not far 
from Rejkjavik. 



THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 19 

modern supreme court, sat as a tribunal of last 
appeal.* 

As the Icelanders had left their Norwegian fire- 
sides in search of polical freedom, the government 
the^^ established was from the first very demo- 
cratic. It could hardly be said to be a republic in 
our modern sense of the word, but rather a patri- 
archal aristocracy. For the power was centered 
in a few families, each retaining its patriarchal 
organization unaffected by higher government. 
Nor was the state at any time very peaceful. 
Bloody feuds and wars were continually carried 
The Government ^^ ^J ^he haughty, restless 
of Iceland. chiefs, who individually strove 
to set up tyrannies as absolute as any that Nor- 
wegian kings had ever attempted. Even after the 
introduction of Christianity in the3''ear 1000 cruel 
feuds were common. As late as 1262, the year in 
which the island declared fealty to Norway, we 
hear of entire families perishing in their homes 
fired bv some remorseless enemv.t 



*It is very interesting to note the similitude of these ear- 
ly Icelandic courts and our modern Er.glish and American 
courts. Take for instance an American state district 
court; in all its essentials — the jury, the judge, the bar — it 
reminds one of the ancient Quakter-court. Again, while 
our modern law-system is greatly indebted to Justinian for 
his code, let us not underestimite the Common Law; and 
then bear in mind, that the most important principles laid 
down in this are of Northern origin. 

•fSee Burnt N jal's Saga, which is accessible through sev- 
eral good English translations; or lead P. ^I. Petersen's 
NjALS Saga, Kobenliavn, 1862. 



20 THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 

Our forefathers' religion did not appeal to the no- 
bler instincts of man exactl}^ rather, I should sa^-, 
to his baser. So it was not till the teachings of the 
White Christ prevailed in the North, and the old 
AYorshippers of Odin began to live b3^ Christian 
precept, that ancient laws and customs lost much 
of their harshness. The advent of Christianity' 
put a summary end to Viking cruises, and with 
them passed man3f an opportunity for heroic 
deeds. But the memory of ancestral achievements 
were not to perish. They were cherished by the 
people who gloried in their ancestors* greatness. 
Unerring skalds* and saga-ment handed down the 
events from age to age, in one unbroken chain, till 



*The skalds, or singing poets, were heM in the highest es- 
teem in the Korth. Their muse was reckoned the gift of 
God, which all, even great chiefs and kings, were eager to 
attain. A renowned skald was as dear to the people, high 
and low, as the greatest hero of the land. He feasted at the 
royal table; sang the king's deeds at the banquet; fought by 
his side in battle; and chanted his praises when death had 
closed his eyes. It is remarkable to what a degree of per- 
fection they had developed their memories, for they were 
as apt at extemporanious verse as at repeating old songs. 
Like the Homeric rhapsodists of old, they could repeat, 
word for word, scores of songs. Of the blind skald Stuf, 
it was said that he could rehearse between two and three 
hundred songs without pausing. To show how very com- 
mon it was in those days to cultivate the memory, we may 
repeat what Halmund (in the Grettir Saga) says to his 
young daughter: 'Thou shalt now listen whilst I relate 
my deeds, and sing thereof a song, which thou shalt after- 
wards cut upon a staff." 

tPersons who recited from memory the sagas, or narrative 
writings. Their office was to preserve the family and gen- 
eral history of the Northmen. (See below, The liEUABiLiTY 
OF Icelandic Literature). 



THE EXODUS OF ICELAND. 21 

they were at length committed to writing about 
the year 1000. In the tw^elfth century, while the 
continent of Europe was shrouded in intellectual 
darkness, save for the feeble rays of light emanat- 
ing from monasteries scattered here and there, dili- 
gent scholars were hard at v^ork in Iceland, lay- 
ing up such stores of prose and verse as have been 
the marvel of the whole world. 

The Icelanders were especially fond of history 
and of working out geneologies. In trustworthi- 
ness and accuracy these works were far in ad- 
vance of their age; some of them could, as far as 
details are concerned, be used as models even in 
our da3^ of mechanical perfection in book making. 
One of the most voluminous and erudite of these 
scholars was the priest Ari Thorgilsson Hinn 
Frodhi.* Born in 1067, he lay the foundation 

Iceland, a Liter- ^^ history writing on the island, 
ary Center. He was the chief author of the 
celebrated Landnama-bok, or geneological table 
of the early Icelandic settlers, a book which we 
shall have occasion to refer to later in our discus- 
sion. Some of his other important works were 
the Islandinga-bok, which contained the his- 
tory of Iceland from its discovery down to Ari's 
own da3^, and the Konunga-bok, or chronicle of 
the kings of Norway. Another writer of special 
interest to us in our present relation was Snorri 



*HiNN Frodhi, i. e. the wise. 



22 THE EXODUS TO ICELAND. 

Sturlason, who counted suclf famous men as Egil 
Skallagrimsson* and Thorfinn Karlsefni among 
his ancestors. He was born in 1178 and like Ari 
Frodhi, at an early age became both chief and 
priest. His fame as a skald aud historian extend- 
ed far beyond the limits of Iceland. To Snorri are 
we indebted for the great Heimskringla, or his- 
tory of the kings of Norway, and very likely also 
for the Younger or Prose Edda, which is a 
skaldic manual of Norse mythology. Such his- 
torical chronicles as mentioned above, and many 
others yet to be named, are our chief sources from 
which we draw the stor3^ of the Norse discovery 
of America. 



*Egil Skallagrimsson, a great Icelandic chief and the hero 
of one of the greatest of the Iceland Sagas.— See K. M. Pe- 
tersen, HiSTORISKE FORT^LLINGER OM ISL^NDEKNES 



The Reliability of Icelandic 
Literature. 



"The Icelandic poems have no parallel in all the treasures 
of ancient literature; they are the expressions of the souls 
of poets existing in the primeval and unefteminated earth." 

—The Howitts. 

A striking trait of the Scandinavians and the 
Icelanders of the earl3^ period, and a trait which is 
just as marked in their present day decendents up 
under the polar circle, was their unsatiable crav- 
ing for news-happenings from the outer world. 
The Northern kingdoms were, as stated above, cut 
up into innumerable districts by mountain and sea, 
forming practicalh^ separate states, each occupied, 
as it were, by one large family. What happened 
within this family group was cherished as com- 
mon history and preserved in song and story, and 
told from generation to generation by the saga 
men. When a stranger arrived from a neighbor- 
ing fjord or island, or from foreign lands, he was 
carried in triumph to a chieftain's hall and benched 
opposite the high seat. Having partaken of the 
best the house provided, it was meet that he in 



24 THE RELIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 

turn tell all that had happened where he came 

from, and the news he had heard in his travels. 

How the Deeds of extraordinary merit 

Sagas Originated. ^^.^^^ repeated from place to 

place — at the Thing, and at the games and the 
baths. In this way such events became part of 
both local and national histor3^ Nor was their 
interest confined to home history. Foreign nev^s 
was listened to as eagerh^ as an}', and incorporated 
with the rest into one great historic fabric. Let it 
be understood then, that these narratives were no 
mere fables and yarns spun to entertain the masses; 
but truthful recitals b\' men who had heard and 
seen, and in man}- instances been participants in 
w^hat they told!* To be sure, the narratives were 
not always entirely reliable. Some would natur- 
aWj enough be distorted for one reason or an- 
other. Oftime false conce^Dtions of the truth or 
even personal prejudice found their Avay into re- 
citals that otherwise were entirely sound in their 
ground-Avork. But what ^vritten histor^^ even in 
our day and time, is entirely free from personal 
bias and misconceijtionlf 

*It must be remarked here that this statement refers only 
to the socalled historical sagas for a discussion of which 
see below. 

tAs De Costa says, " The relation of prodigies in no wise 
destroys the credibility of historical statement. If this 
were not so, we should be obliged to discard the greater por- 
tion of well kncwn history, and even suspect plain matters 
of fact in the writings of such men as Dr. Johnson because 
that great scholar fully believed in the reality of an appari. 



THE RELIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 25 

The oral narratives were in course of time re- 
duced to writing. With the advent of Christianity 
the Roman alphabet was substantially substituted 
for the inconvenient and incomplete system of 
runes* which had hitherto been the only means 
of writing known in the North. The use of letters 
extended so rapidh^ that the saga-men, like 
the runes, w^ere speedily relegated to the past. 
Throughout the whole of Iceland, industrious 
scribes set to work to gather up and reduce to 
writing the literature of ages. In 1116 the whole 

law code was committed to writ- 
Committ?d to ing; and in 1112 the major part 
Writing, between of the Church law was written. 
1000 and 1200 A. D, . . ^ ^. ^. ,.^ 

About the same time history 

writing commenced, and by the opening of the 
Thirteenth centurj^ many of the sagas were already 
written. The Augustan Age of Icelandic literature 
had commenced. Both in quantity and quality 
did the island's productions excel those of any 
other European nation at that time. In fact, as 
De Costa states, " the sagas formed the first prose 



tion known in London as the Cock Lane Ghost. "—The Pre- 
Columbian Discovery OF America BY the Northmen. 

♦Derived from ryn, signifying a furrow. It should b^ 
noted that while the Roman alphabet did supplant the runes, 
some of the letters were retained because the Icelanders 
had certain sounds unknown to the Romans. A glance at 
an Icelandic book will verity this. 



26 THE RELIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 

literature in an\^ modern language spoken by the 
people."* 

If some of the historians who hove declared the 
sagas incredible and niythological were half as 
familiar with these as they are with the history- of 
Greece and Rome, their denunciation would never 
have been penned. Such statements display an 
utter ignorance of the real nature of the 
sagas. No person giving the subject con- 
scientious thought could possibly bring in such a 
verdict. And if Bancroft and other American his- 
torians are doubters, it is plainly because they are 
very unfamiliar with the subject, or because it 
suits their purpose to ignore all Northern claims to 
discovery. It is w4th unmixed pleasure, therefore, 
that we turn to such a broad-minded, modern 
scholar as John Fiske to hear a really logical in- 
terpretation of the difficulty. He strikes the key- 
note when he states that the ^' misapprehension is 
due to the associations with which the word 
^sagas' has been clothed." For, as he says, ''we 

John Fiske's ^^^ ^^ ^^^ hahit of using the w^ord 
Defense of the in English as equivalent to 
Word "Sagas." Iegendar3^ or semi-mj^thical nar- 
ratives. And to cite a ' saga ' as authority for a 
statement, seems therefore to some people as inad- 



*In this connection, Sir Edmund Head says, " Xo doubt 
there were translations in Anglo-Saxon from the J.atin, by 
Alfred, of an early date, but there was in truth no vernacu- 
lar literature. 1 cannot name, " he continues, " any work in 



THE RELIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 27 

missible as to cite a fairy-tale. " From this he goes 
on to refute in part and jDarticle the grotesquely 
ridiculous comparison made between Leif Eriksson 
and Agamemnon by a committee of the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society. And after a careful com- 
parison he concludes that ''the Trojan War and 
its heroes, as we have it in Homer and the Athen- 
ian dramatists, is pure folk-lore as regards form, 
and chiefly folk-lore as regards contents; " but, ''it 
would be hard to find anything more unlike such 
writings than the class of Icelandic sagas to which 
that of Erik the Red belongs. Here we have quiet 
sober narrative, not in the least like a fairy-tale, 
but often much more like a ship's log, whatsoever 
such narrative may be, it is not folk-lore. " Much 
of the misapprehension apparently rests upon the 
fact that the Icelanders did not classify their var- 
ious narrative- writings under separate heads, as 
'• history " and " story; " but merely used the term 
" sagas " in common for all. This fact understood, 
it only remains to classify the sagas. And this 
Fiske accomplishes most admirably by dividing 
them into iiiFthical sagas ^nd historical sagas * 



high or low German prose which can be carried back to this 
period. In France, prose writing cannot be said to have 
begun before the time of Villehardouin (1204). and Joinville 
(1202). CaetiUan prose certainly did not commence before 
the time of Alfonso X (1252)." 

*For a complete discussion of the word " sagas " as misin- 
terpreted by scholars and others in this country, see John 
Fiske, The Disco vehy of America. Vol. I, pp. 194-198. 



28 THE RELIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 

In the first class are of course placed such m3^thical 
narratives as the Eddas and the like, together with 
the folk-love elements. The second class Includes 
that large mass of purely historical narratives 
which comprise the sagas of Egil and Njal, the 
Eyrbyggja, the Laxdaela, the Storlunga, with a 
host of others, besides biographies and chronologi- 
cal writings galore. As we pass from this part of 
the subject, then, let us keep in mind the distinction 
betw^een the two kinds of sagas. With this, we may 
dwell for a brief time upon those particular histori- 
cal sagas which are our chief sources on the ques- 
tion of the Norsemen in America, and make note 
why they are perfectly reliable. 

In the famous Anni Magnussen collection of 
manuscripts in the University Library at Copen- 
hagen are to be found two celebrated skin-books, 
brought thither from their repositories in Iceland. 
They are the Codex Flatoensis or Flateyar-bok, 
found at Flato, and the Hauks-bok, often spoken 
of as the western version. Of these invaluable 
manuscripts, the Flateyar-bok w^as completed 
sometime between the years 1388 and 1395 by the 
erudite priest Jon Thordharsson. The work is 
really a history of the Norwegian king Olaf Tr^^gvas- 
son, in the course of writing which the thorough- 
going Jon saw an opportunity to dilate upon the 
career of Leif Eriksson, who as an intimate friend 
of King Olaf could not be passed without notice, 
and thus he came to tell the storv of Greenland 



THE RELIABILITY OE ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 29 

and Yinland the Good. This chapter of the Fla- 
Erik the Red'8 TEYARBOK is generally spoken 
Sag-a. of as Erik the Red's Saga. There 

can be no doubt that the historian made use of 
the original of the saga in his compilation. The 
original manuscript is now unfortunately lost, but 
it would appear from internal evidence, based 
on language and style, that it was the production 
of the twelfth century. 

The Hauks-bok, which is the older and, upon 
the whole, the more complete of the two versions, 
is the work of Governor Hauk Erlendsson, who 
died in Iceland in 1334. Hauk was one of the 
greatest scholars that the island has produced; 
and what was more, he could boast lineal descent 
from Snorri Thorfinnsson, the first white child 
born on the American mainland. A great lover 
of books, he spent many years of his life copjdng 
manuscripts and reducing oral traditions to writ- 
ing. The major part of his work is found in the 
several hundred skins of the artistically finished 
Hauks-bok which contains among others the 
Thorfinn story of Thorfinn Karlsefni's 

Karlsefni's Saga, colonization of Yinland. This 
narrative is generalh^ known under the name of 
Thorfinn Karlsefni's Saga. 

Mr. Slafter appears to be unable to decide in his 
mind whether Hauk copied the Saga from an older 
manuscript or whether he reduced it to writing 



30 THE EELIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 

from oral tradition.* Fiske is very positive, on 
the other hand, that it would be utterly impossi- 
ble to have preserved the Saga in its integrity for 
such a long time, had it been handed down in oral 
tradition. For, as he argues, 'the many marks of 
truthfulness in detail foreign to ordinary Ice- 
landic experience would have been lost, and some 
extravagant statements necessarily interpolat- 
ed. 'f This certainly is the only national view to 
be taken. And it allows of but one conclusion— 
that the Hauks-bok, as well as the Flateyar- 
BOK, was copied from some older manuscript no 
longer known to exist. The ver3^ fact that there 
survive two written versions, displaying a sub- 
stantial agreement, though differing considerably 

in detail, is in itself rather 

Tlie Historical , r r j^i • x c 

Ao-reement strong prooT oi the existence of 

of the earlier manuscripts. A careful 

Two Versions. ^ , r ^t, • t 

Study of their divergencies 

furthermore shows that the Codex Flatoensis 



*He says, "Whether it had been committed to writing at 
an earlier period, and copied by him from a manuscript, or 
whether he took the narrative from oral tradition and re- 
duced it himself to writing for the first time, is not known." 
—Voyages Or the Norihmen to America, K. F. Slafter, 
Editor. Now, is the author's indecision of mind noc 
traceable to certain statements of the saga itself? As, 
"Karlsefni has accurately reated to all men the occurrences 
on all these voyages, of which somewhat is now related 
here." Any rational being will, however, see at a glance 
that this statement need not decide the case— it may be 
made to read two ways. 

tJohn Fiske, Discovery of America, Vol. I. p. 20!. 



THE RELIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERATURE. 31 

could impossibly have been copied from the older 
Hauks-bok; and should prove to the satisfaction 
of even the rankest doubter, the utter impossibility 
of the two writers "having banded together for 
the purpose of historical fraud."* 

Although the originals of the two great narra- 
tives can no longer be produced, their truthfulness 
is attested to by incidental references to the heroes 
and actors of these very sagas, throughout the 
entire mass of Icelandic literature, and in some 



*Some writers are slow to accept the truth of the Sagas 
because, as we have stated heretofore, instances of the mar- 
velous and super-natural do occur occasionally — such peo- 
ple are to be pitied. But what is stranger, it occurs that 
writers ivf use to accept them because they show too many 
sabstaiitial agreements! Because the sagas are too true, too 
accurate; because they have been finit^hed in such a pains- 
taking manner — these writers shout, "put up job!" — sucti 
people are not to be pardoned. From such authorities as 
these one may even ex])ect to hear, 'that the manuscripts 
describing the Viniand voyages like as not belong to the 
post-Columbian age!" With statements of this sort we 
should have no patience. Let these over-zealous and, with- 
al, ignorant worshippers of the Genoese navigator get to 
work and study the narratives; this task ended, we challenge 
them to produce any evidence whatever to substantiate 
their claim. What with the innumerable "thumb-marks' of 
truth — the straight forward way of telling the story, sparing 
neither friend nor foe, the entire absence of any anxiety to 
prove the connection of the Northmen with the new contin- 
ent or of any wish to prove priority of discovery — these 
narratives must be accepted to be as trustworthy, as entire- 
ly indepentent of each other, as two such works as Irving's 
Life of Columbus and Wiasor's Chkistohher Colum- 
bus. 

The writers alluded to above are happily few, and becom- 
ing fewer every day. The rai,k and tile of the world's 
historians in our d «y accept the Sagas as entirely reliable^ 



32 THE RELIABILITY OF ICELANDIC LITERAURE. 

writers who were not Icelandic * And, to again 
quote Fiske, "such incidental references imph^ the 
existence, during the interval between the Yinland 
voyages and Hauk's manuscript, of many inter- 

T -J . , -r. r tnediate links of sound testimo- 
Incidental Refer- - 1 , i . -, 

ences to ^J that have smce dropped out 

,^'ijiland from of sight; and therefore they 20 
Other Sources, r ., . -. 

lar toward removing whatever 

presumption may be alleged against Hauk's man- 
uscript because of its distance from the events, "t 
AU these ' 'intermediate links," as they appear in 
the whole body of Icelandic history, furnish indis- 
putable evidence that no literary fraud could have 
been committed. 



accept also the discovery of America by Leif Eriksson in 
year 1000, though many do maintain that the DiscovERy 

HAD NO REAL SIGNIFICENCE. 

*ror a discussion of these references see below. 

tJohn Fiske, The Discovery of America, Yol. I., p. 203. 



The Story of the Discovery. 



'Tar had I wandered from this northern shore,. 
Far from the bare heights and the wintry seas, 
Dreaming of these 

No more." —A. F. 

The earliest narrative* we have of the Icelanders 
on the American continent is, that one Ari 
Maarsson of Rejkjanes was, in the 3^ear 728, car- 
ried by storms westward across the sea to a 
strange land which w^as named Hvitramanna- 
land,t or Great Ireland. The stor^^ of this half- 
mythical country some five or six years later 
Hvitramannaland induced the hot-headed Erik 

Discovered, 928. Thorvaldsson the Red, who 
had been outlawed in Norway on account of a 
murder of which he had been found guilty, to start 



*This is taken from the Landnama-bok and is without 
the least shadow of doubt authentic history. The only 
point in doubt is the location of Ari's discovery. 

tHvitramannaland (the white men's land) according to 
the narrative lay "six days' sail west of Ireland." The ques- 
tion now rises, could this in any probability have been the 
. merican mainland? A six days' voyage, even with high 
winds, could hardly have carried the fleetest dragon mo^e 
than half way across the space intervening between Ireland 
and the American coast. Hvitramannaland is more likely 
to have been an island or group of islands lying to the west 
or southwest of Ireland— say the Azores. Professor Kafn 
persists in believing that the Roman numeral VI. in the 
very indistinct manuscript is intended for XX. or XI. (a 



34 THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 

on a search for those shores. He Y03^aged no 
farther, however, than to Oxney, or Ox-island, at 
the mouth of BreidaQord in Iceland, and there 
took up his abode. Here again he straightway 
became entangled in a blood-feud, and ended it all 
by sla^^ing his neighbor, the powerful E3^olf Saur. 
Erik was now a second time outlavv^ed, and found 
it expedient to seek some more remote asylum. 
One of his kinsmen, Gunnbjorn, had meanwhile in 
the year 876 chanced upon some outl_ving islands* 
on Greenland's east coast, and thither Erik now 
decided to flee. 
With a handful of comrades he set sail in the 



dangerous hypothesis) and that the land in question should 
be sought in Florida or Georgia. To strengthen his view he 
cites an old Shawanese tradition which has it, that these 
Indians' ancestors came from over the sea. Dr. Enander, 
too, in his Nordmannen i Amerika. rests his case entirely 
too much on such Indian deductions. While the Indians 
very likely did receive a slight infusion of Norse blood, it 
is dangerous in the extreme to find old Norse words in the 
Dakotah dialects, to see marked likenesses between Scandi- 
navian and Iroquois law-systems, and to quote such sweep- 
ing statements, as: "Det var Nordmannablod, som flot i 
rner iln en indianstams adror, Oet var Nordmannakaraktar, 
som afspeglade sig i manga af deras handlingar, seder och 
bruk i krig och i fred." It is just as risky to assert, that the 
Aztecs of Mexico learned their ''Old Testament truths, ' as 
they have been called by the Spaniards, from the North- 
men; for let us bear in mind, there live people in the South 
Sea Islands now who have traditions of a Noaic Flood and of 
a sort of a Tower of Babel. It is my opinion that lovers of the 
discovery question do their cause inestimable harm by ven- 
turing on such insecure ground. We bave no need of so 
many theories and hypotheses— the case is won without 
them, and only bemuddled with them. 
♦These were called Gannbjorn's S'^erries, and for years, 



THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 35 

year 983 and soon sighted land at the pro- 
montory which later was called Herjulfsnes. Fol 
lowing thence the broken shoreline southwardly 
he arrived at the socalled EriksQord and wintered 
there. Three years were now spent in exploring 
the numerous inlets of the southern coast. The 
vast stretch east of Cape Farewell was found to 
be worthless for settlement^ with its ice-locked 
harbors and its seemingly endless waste of ice and 
snow. Thenceforth the explorers expended their 
energies in examining the deep fjords farther 
to the west. At length, in the year 986, a suita- 
ble place was found at the head of Igaliko Fjord, 
not far from the present Julianeshaab. 

The land settled, though girth about with ice 
and snow, seems upon the whole to haVe pleased 
these hardy home- seekers, who found there an 
abundance of meadows and hay-lands.* Erik call- 
Greenland Settled ^^ i^ Greenland, "for," quoth he, 
986. "people will be attracted hither 

if the land has a good name." Nor was he wrong 



down to 1456, they were familiar mile-stones to Greenland- 
farers; but in that year they were destroyed by a volcanic 
eruption and to this day form dangerous shoals, sbunned 
by navigators of those waters. On liuysch's map of the 
world we read: "Insula haec anno Donimi 1456 fuit 

TOTALITER COMBUSTA." 

*The indications are, that some slight change has taken 
place in the climate of Greenland during the past 900 years 
—not so great a change, however, that Erik the Red could 
have called it "a green land" on account of its verdure. The 
various descriptions have it that in those days it had mea- 
dows and hay-lands; but as for that, these may be seen even 



36 THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 

in his mode of reasoning; for, venturing back to 
Iceland, he found it easy to induce a great number 
of Icelanders to sell their homesteads and try 
their fortunes in the highly praised Greenland. A 
fleet numbering twenty-five ships left the island 
during the same year. But so rough was the 
Vi^eather and so dangerous the coast that only 
fourteen ships, all told, made harbor in safety. 
These early comers settled, for the most part, the 
district in the immediate neighborhood of 
Brattalid, and there founded what they called 
(isT Bygd, or East Settlement. In the course of a 
short time additional colonists flocked over from 
Iceland, and a second settlement called Vest Bygd, 
or West Settlement, sprang up in the vicinity of 
the present-day Godthaab. Thus, in a few years, 



today. Now t rik, as we have learned, sought an attractive 
name for the land purposely to draw colonists. It certainly 
does appear from the testimony of Ivar Baardsen 
(Gronlandiae Descriptio), who lived during the last half 
of the 14th century, that there was already in his day a 
southward drift of the ice-sheet along the eastern coast of 
Greenland, so much so that ships sailing from Iceland were 
beginning to follow a more southern route, x hat this polar 
ice-sheet is still continuing its downward flow is testified to 
by modern scientists. See Zahrtmann, Journal of Royal 
Geographical Society, Vol. Y. p. 102. Such an accumula- 
tion of ice. we may readily believe, has had sufficient in- 
fluence on the climate to shorten the hay crops and make 
the growing of cereal grains impossible. Thormodus 
Torfaeus, the author of Historia Gronlandiae An- 
tiquae, has the following to say: "The air is more calm 
and settled in Greenland, and the cold less intense than in 
Iceland and Norway. An excessive frost, indeed, some- 
times sets in, and the tempests rage more furiously than in 
any other part of the world; but they are of rare occurrence 



THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 37 

all that portion of Greenland, lying west of Cape 
Farewell, between the modern Frederiksdal and 
Bredefjord, was colonized.* A brisk traffic in 
whale oil and pelts sprang up with the mother 
country and Norway, and Greenland seemed in a 
fair way to prosperity. 

Such, in brief, is the story gleaned from the 
pages of Erik the Red's Saga, describing the first 
known settlement of America by Europeans. 
Thus that part of the New World which we are 
accustomed to call Danish America began to play 
its part in European history. All this happened 
just five hundred and six years before Columbus 
set foot on San Salvador. That it constitutes a 



and short duration, and are never so violent as to kil^ 
cattle." Again, "People of property have made several at- 
tempts to grow corn, but the quantity grown has been very 
inconsiderable, the seed being destroyed by the severe 
frosts. The common people have never seen corn, nor do 
they know what bread is. In other respects the land is de- 
scribed as very fertile, abounding" in rich pastures, and pro- 
ducing very large, fat oxen, cows, sheep and goats, which 
supply large dairies with butter and cheese." From Crantz, 
who writes on modern Greenland, we learn that "grass is 
found not only on boggy, sandy, or turf land, where it is 
commonly very poor and diminutive, but also in clefts of 
rocks filled with earth, and particularly near human habita- 
tions where it grows very luxuriantly Several at- 
tempts have been made to grow oats and barley. They send 
up as high a blade as in other countries, but seldom come 
into ear, and are in the very warmest situations prevented 
from ripening by the night frosts."— David Cranz, The His- 
tory OF Greenland, Vol. I. pp. 60 and 61. 

*After the destruction of the dreenland colonies people, 
mislead by the names Ost Bygd and Ve-st Bygd, came to 
think that the settlements must have stood to the east and 



38 THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 

discoven^ and colonization of America, at least 
Greenland, the geographically speaking, there 
Anti-Chamber to can, of course, be no disputing. 
^^M^^nl^nd^^ As for being a discovery ''in the 
true sense of the word," it is at 
any rate as truly a discovery as the landing of 
the Genoese navigator upon the outljdng islands 
of America in 1492.* Let us accept the coloniza- 
tion of Greenland, then, in the sense ''of reaching 
the vestibule or anti-chamber of the Western 
Hemisphere," bearing well in mind that once upon 
the threshold, it is a natural sequence to enter 
the chamber. And this the Norsemen did as truly 
as ever did the Spaniards. 

One of Erik the Red's follov^^ers was the Iceland- 
er Herjulf Baardsson, who built his home on 
Herjulfsfjord, near the present Narksamiut. Now 
this Herjulf had a young and promising son, 



west of Cape Farewell. Mr. Crantz, as late as the eigh- 
teenth century, voices this notion in his History of Green- 
land. Yet Ivar Baardsen, four centuries earlier, gave to 
the world a description of Greenland, wherein he locates 
both the settlements on the western coast. This work 
found little credence in tiie eyes of early scholars, though it 
has lately been veritled as a result of the explorations under- 
taken by the Danish government. Captain Graah, in 1827— 
31, headed an expedition, which carefully explored the 
coasts of Greenland, mapping the shoreline and locating 
the ruins of the lost settlements. 

*No opponent of the Norse discovery in our day denies 
that the Icelanders, centuries before Columbus as born, set- 
lied Greenland, or Danish America, building there colonies 
that lasted 400 years — a period of time as long as all post- 
Columbian history— or that they lived under a perfectly 



THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 39 

Bjarni b3'' name, who at the time of his father's 
departure chanced to be in Norway on a trading 
tour. Returning to Iceland and finding the home- 
stead in strange hands and the entire household 
gone, Bjarni determined to follow, not even taking 
time to unload his cargo. With a crew as imdaunt- 
ed as himself, he set sail and was soon on an un- 
known sea, swallowed up by fogs and foul weather. 
''Formanydays"he sailed by guess, and when land 
was finally sighted it was a country "covered 
with woods, without mountains, and with small 
hills inland." This, Bjarni thought, could not be 
Greenland, a land which he had been told was full 
of fjords and *'ice hills," and entirely devoid of 
forests. So without stopping he ''left the land on 
his larboard side, and let the stern turn from the 
land." Chased b3^ a stifi* breeze our voyagers kept 
on northward, several times seeing land in the 
distance; but as Bjarni repeatedl^^ maintained, 
*'this is not the land that we want," it was not 
approached an3^ closer. Ten days had passed 
-when the icy shoreline of Greenland came in view. 
**This," said Bjarni, "is most like what has been 



organized civil and ecclesiastical government. But what 
they do deny is, that this constitutes a r i-: a l discov- 
ery. It is, of course, a perfect enough discovery geo- 
ORAPHTCALLY consideied, but it mus r not be consider- 
ed A RKAL DISCOVERY in the TRUE SENSE, for that would 
needs knock the pegs from under the Columbian pedestal! 



40 THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 

told me of Greenland, and here we shall take to 
BjarniHerjulfs- land."* Nowasgood fortune 
son and the would have it, the icv crasrs 
New West Land , , ' ^i "^ ^i 

ahead were none other than 

Herjulfsnes, the home of the long sought father. 
Our weather tossed mariners were received with 
much rejoicing; and we may rest assured that the 
Yule-mead was measured out by no "stinting 
hand at the festivities following close upon the 
reunion of father and son. 

We are told that Bjarni was frequently blamed 
for not having explored the wonderful land he 
had stumbled upon. But so busy were the Scandi- 
navians in other parts of the world, and so ordin- 
ary an affair was it in those daj's with them to 
find new shores, that the story did not excite very 
much curiosity. One person, however, was much 
taken up with the talk, and that was the illustri- 
ous Leif, son of Erik the Red. This young man, 
who is described as "large and strong, of noble 
aspect, prudent and moderate in all things," spent 

*The straightforward narrative of Bjarni's voyage is 
found in the Codex Flotoiensis. The student taking 
the trouble to read it in detail will readily agree that the 
story describes the first coasting voyage made by an 
European along the mainland of America. And he will as 
readily agree that the voyage covers' some portion of the 
continent lying between IS! ew England and Newfoiindland 
or Labrador. As De Costa remarks, "the discovery was 
accidental, something like the discovery of America by 
Columbus, who, in looking for the East Indies, stumbled 
upon a new world." But it was very important in results, 
insomuch as it pointed out a path for Leif the Lucky to 
follow. 



THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 41 

some ver^' stirring months in the service of Olaf 
Trjgvasson, king of Norway. About the year 998 
he was converted to the Christian faith, and be- 
came a wilHng instrument for its propogation in 
the New World. When he returned home to 
Greenland, he brought along priests, who convert- 
ed and baptized man^^ of the people there. A 
church was established, and a bishop came out 
from Norway to take charge of it. All this hap- 
pened in the early part of the year 1000 — the 
same year in which Iceland accepted Christianity. 
Leif s mind was now so far releaved of responsibility 
that he could begin to think of affairs other than 

Leif Eriksson's the spreading of the Gospel. His 
Expedition one desire was to see with his 

Bets cail, ItUO. ,, , -t n- • i j 

own e^^es the land Bjarm had 

found. Accordingly he sought out this voyager 
and bought of him the dragon now famous for the 
voyage it had made. Then he set about to equip 
the ship and collect a crew of trusty seamen. 
Old Erik agreed to accompany the expedition in 
compacity of commander; but being in feeble 
health, he went to the place of embarkation on 
horseback. On the way, however,the horse stum- 
bled and threvv him, and regarding this as a bad 
omen, he declined to go any farther, saying, ''I do 
not believe it is given to me to discover more 
lands, and here I will abide." 

With a crew of thirty -five men, all told, the ex- 
pedition sailed from Brattalid, and, retracing in 



42 THK STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 

an inverted order the route taken b3^ Bjarni, soon 
came in sight of land. It turned out to be a great 
barren plain, from the shore to the distant moun- 
tains covered with big, flat rocks, with not a 
vestige of vegetation, the whole covered with ice 
and snow. After landing and beholding the deso- 
Helluland, late Waste stretching before his 

Its Location. eyes, Erik exclaimed, ''we have 
not at any rate done like Bjarni about this land, 
that we have not been upon it; now will I give 
the land a name, and call it Helluland^" From 
the description given in the saga, this land cannot 
fail to have been some point on the American 
coast opposite Greenland — the coast of Labrador, 
or very possibly the northern coast of Newfound- 
land. Some days later our explorers arrived at a 
w^ell wooded country, where pine trees ''fit for 
masts" grew in great abundance. Long, low 
beaches covered \vith white, glistening sand 
Markland, stretched as far as the e3^e cottld 

Its Location. reach; and, inland, lost them- 
selves in flat plains on which the forests grew. 
Then Leif said, "We shall give this land a name 
according to its kind and call it Markland. "f 
Critics now sreneralh^ asrree that this was some 



♦From Hella, a flat stone. 

tMarkland (i. e. wood-land) is described in the saga as 
flat and low. This agrees admirably with the country near 
the present Halifax, which is so low that it is "not visible 
tweuty miles off; except from the quarter deck of a seventy- 
four. Apostogon Hills have a long, level appearance, be- 



THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 43 

part of the coast of Nova Scotia or possibly, of 
Cape Breton Island. The early belief that it 
should be sought on the southern coast of New- 
foundland is now for the most part discredited. 
Again they put to sea and, spreading their square 
sail before a brisk northeaster, scudded merrily 
along, and two days later again drew neariand. 
That this was New England there is hardly a 
doubt, though the precise locality cannot, with 
an^^ accuracy, be pointed out. They landed on an 
island* which some believe was Nantucket. From 
this place thcA' continued along the coast to where 
a river emptied into the sea. This stream proved 



tween Cape Le Have and Port Medway, the coast to the 
seaward being level and low, and the shores with white 
rocks and low, barren points; from thence to Shelburne and 
Port Roseway, are woods." In Mariiland a later voyager, 
Thortinn Karlsefni, slew a bear, an adventure remarkable 
only tor the fact that it is one of the many instances where 
animals are introduced into the narrative, becoming an aid 
in limiting the localities of the several discoveries. To be 
sure this case is of no aid in limitimg Markland, for al- 
though bears do abound in Nova Scotia, so do they all 
along our northeastern coast; but the point to be made 
here is, that the narrator did slay an animal found today 
upon the shores which they claim to have visited. Had 
they, to quote Fiske, "been drawing upon their imagina- 
tions or dealing with semi-mythical materials, they would 
as likely as not have lugged into the story elephants from 
Africa or hippogriffs from Dreamland; mediaeval writers 
were blissfully ignorant of all canons of probability in such 
matters." 

*While this may or may not have been Nantucket Island, 
the concensus of opinion'is, that this was some island off 
the Massachusetts coast. It is not so sure, however, that 
the island is now in existence. N ine hundred years have 
made many changes in our coast lines; so many, indeed, 



44 THE STORY, OF THE DISCOVERY. 

to be the outlet of a lake*, pleasantly situated and 

teeming with all manner of fresh fish.f So well 

did Leif like the place that he concluded to spend 

the winter there. Wooden booths were erected 

near the beach and the winter stores transferred 

to them. Our voyagers encountered many ad- 

T -rT- -i ' ventures that must have been 
Leif Kriksson s 

Winter In Vinland more than marvelous to them, 
the Good. as they appear almost incredu- 
lous to us at first sight. But, after all, they are 
only such as to strengthen a simple account of 
actual events. We hear, for example, that where 
they first landed "there was dew upon the grass; 
and having accidentally gotten some of the dew 
upon their hands and put it in their mouths, they 
thought they had never tasted anything as sweet 
as it was." This ma^'- sound just a mite as though 



that it is futile now to determine, with any decree of cer- 
tainty, the exact location of Yinland by comparing the de- 
scriptions of the coasts, as we have them in the saga, with 
the New England coasts as we know them. 

*De Costa says, *'The river was evidently Seaconnet Pass- 
age and Pocasset River; and the lake was Mount Hope 
Bay." See also below Horsford's Norumbega. 

tHere we again encounter one of the undeniable "thumb- 
marks" of the truthfulness of the narrative. In Prof. 
Rafn's Antiquitates American.^, p. 32, we find the fol- 
lowing in the original Icelandic: "Hvorki skorti thar lax i 
anni ne i vatninu, ok staerra lax enn their hefdhi fyrr 
sedh," i. e., Neither was there a lack of salmon in the river 
and in the lake, and larger salmon than they had before 
seen. Salmon is not now so plentiful on the New England 
coast; but in the colonial times it was quite different. De 
Costa even maintains "a rule was made providing that 
masters should not oblige their apprentices to eat this flsh 
more than twice a week." 



THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 45 

the Norse adventurers had found a land abound- 
ing in a sort of manna, sweeter, if not so substantial 
as that which the Lord let fall for the hungry 
Israelites in the desert; and yet, it is nothing at 
all unheard of on the New England coast.* 

They were especially struck with the length of 
day in this strange land. According to their de- 
scription, the sun could be seen just nine hours at 
winter solstice. Then, said they, it rose at 

Unavailing At. 7:30 A.M. and set at 4:30 P. 
tempts to cieek the M.f This would fix the latitude 

Exact Latitude ^^ 41 Deg. 24 Min. 10 Sec. 
of Vmland. ° 

which places Leifs winter- 
quarters above Point Judith, on Narragansett 
Bay. But no great reliance can be placed on 
such statements as here made; for, as Fiske sa3^s, 
''remember that they (our voyagers) had no 
accurate instruments for measuring time, and 
that a difference of about fourteen minutes be- 



*This is the socalled "honey dew" mentioned by Dr. Webb 
and others, and which actually tastes sweet. 

tThis statement may not be sufficient to settle the exact 
position of Vinland; but it certainly does show that the 
Norsemen had reached a latitude low enough to be consid- 
ered remarkable. As their trading voyages reached every 
part of the British Isles and Normandy, the latitude of 
either of these countries was so well known to them that 
only a much more southernly position could have called 
forth comment. Now it happens that latitude 41 Deg. 
24 Min. 10 Sec. lies a few miles to the south of Portugal's 
northern boundary. This would be several hundred miles 
farther south than tha Norsemen's accustomed stamping 
grounds, and as such, the difference in the length of day, 
sufficient to be noticed by them. 



46 THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 

tween sunrise and sunset on the shortest winter 
day would make all the difference between Boston 
and Halifax."* The climate too was so mild as to 
draw comment from the hardy Greenlanders. 
Said the^' : "There was no frost in winter, and 
the grass was not much withered."! The country 
seemed so good to them that cattle would hardly 
need house-feeding — a fact calculated to appeal to 
people coming, as the Norsemen, from regions of 
rigorous winters, where fodder was scarce and 
hard to secure. 

Leif divided his crew into two divisions, which 
took day about exploring the countr3^ On one of 
these expeditions a German named Tyrker, and 
who was Leif s foster-father, became separated 
from his companions and lost in the woods. The 
foster-son began to get uneasy on the old man's 



♦Fiske's Discovery Vol. I. p. 166. 

tSome writers argue that the climate of the United States 
must have undergone the same changes as have taken place 
in Greenland since the discovery, and that the mildness of 
the Vinland winters should be explained on these grounds. 
Such argument hardly appears reasonable when the causes 
leading to the changes in Greenland are rightly understood, 
and it is born in mind that these causes are yet at work up 
in the North. We need only remember, too, that Thorfinn 
Karlsefni, only seven years later, found the American win- 
ters severe and hard to endure. It is much more likely 
that the winter of lOOO-Ol in Yinland was one of those 
mild, open winters that are liable to occur in most any part 
of the United States. The winter of 1889-90, says Fiske, 
was so mild around Boston, that had the Greenlanders ar- 
rived in that year, they might very naturally have described 
it as a winter "without frost and with grass hardly withered.'* 



THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 47 

account, when this person reappeared in a state 
of wildest excitement, grimacing and talking to 
himself in his own "south-country" tongue. As 
soon as he was quieted do\vn — "for Leif saw that 
his father was not in his right mind" — and ques- 
tioned as to what had befallen him, he answered: 
"I did not go much farther than they; and 3^et I 
have something altogether new to relate, for I 
found vines and grapes."* This was great news 
to our explorers. For surely no better proofs 
were wanted that the land was a good one than 
that grapes abundant enough for wine-making 
were known to grow there! So Leif named 

,,. , , XT •, thelandViNLAND; that is, the land 

Vmland Naiiied. . ' 

of wine. The forests were now 
more systematical^ explored, and a tree called 
massurt found. But more important still, they 



*Dt. Storm, in his Studies on the vinland Voyages, 
points out that the wild grape is unknown north of 47 ® — 
the latitude ot Kent, New Brunswick. In Newfoundland, 
he says, it is entirely unknown. Here again we have a 
reference aiding us to limit Vinland to the north. We may 
■positively assert that Leif's discovery lay south of the 
parallel of 47 ® north latitude, i. e. south of Cape Breton 
Island. And then how far south? As grapes are not very 
plentiful north of Halifax, the very fact that the discover- 
ers found them in great abundance, indicates that Nova 
Scotia must be passed by. In Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island they are, on the other hand, found growing luxuri- 
antly down to the very shoreline. Here, surely, Vinland 
must be sought! 

tBy some wiseacres it is maintained that the Norsemen 
hereby meant mahogany! Now there is nothing whatso- 
ever in the statement to base such a ridiculous assertion 
upon. Being anything but accustomed to judge of differ- 
ent sorts of wood, we should expect them to tind in a New 



48 THE STORY OF THE DISCOVERY. 

came Upon *'selfsown wheat fields."* After this 
the whole crew set to work cutting -timber with 
which they filled the hold of the ship. Then great 
quantities of grapes— it is said the whole stern- 
boatt full— were carried aboard; after that they 
set sail lor Greenland. On the homeward voyage 
Leif had the good fortune to rescue a crew of fif- 
teen ship- wrecked sailors. Erik the Red thought 
his son lucky in finding Yinland and in saving the 
ship-crew. But now^ whether it was for the one 
reason or the other, Leif was ever after known as 
Leif THE LucKY.t Yinland, too, from the glow- 
ing accounts about it, took the name of Yinland 
THE Good. II 



England forest more than one kind of tree striking them 
as curious and valuable, and worthy of being carried home 
to Greenland as samples of the new land's productions. 

*If these "self-sown" fie'ds were in reality the patches of 
maize, or Indian corn, as Fiske believes, we have in them 
a further help to aid in limiting Yinland's whereabouts. 
For maize requires long and very hot seasons to mature, 
and such conditions can hardly be said to be met with north 
of parallel 44 o, which passes through southern Maine. 
Here again our presumption must favor Massachusetts or 
Rhode Island. 

tThe saga has it: "Sva er sagt at eptirbatr theirra var 
fylddr af vinberjam," i. e. so it is said that their stern-boat 
was filled with wine berries. 

J" After that time people called him, Leif the Fortunate; 
but his father Erik said that these two things went against 
one another; that Leif had saved the crew of the ship, and 
delivered them from death, and that he had [brought] that 
bad man into Greenland, that is what he called the priest." 
— De Costa's translation of Rafn's Antiquitates Ameri- 

CANAF. 

||The whole of the story of Leif 's voyage is told in the 
Codex Flatoiensis. 



Attempts at Exploration and 
Colonization, 



"From shores where Torfinn set thy banner 
Their latest children seek thee now." 

— Bayard taylor. 

Soon after their home-coming hoary old Erik 
departed this Hfe for the joys of boisterous 
Valhalla. He at least was steadfast in the faith 
of his fathers to the very last.* Leif, as eldest son 
and legal head of the household, found his time 
too much occupied with personal concerns to give 
further attention to Vinland. This duty then fell 
upon his younger brother Thorvald, who set out 
in the year 1002 with a crew of thirty men and 

Thorvald Eriks- I^eif's ship. He found Vinland 
son's Expediticn, without any trouble and winter- 
1002. ^^ there, spending the time alter- 

nately in exploring and in fishing the fat salmon 
which he found in abundance. The following spring 



♦Authorities differ on this point. It is certain that only 
a few months before his death Erik had nothing but evil 
to speak of the priests. On the other hand the saga has it 
that his WAS finally baptized. It says: "But after much 
urging Erik was baptized, as well as all the people of Green- 
land." At best this conversion could hardly have been of 
the heart. 



50 ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 

he sent some men in the long-boat westward along 
the coast— some writers think it probable that 
they reached as far east as the present New York 
harbor. ''They found no abode for man or beast; 
but on an island far towards the west, they found 
a corn barn constructed of wood."* In the au- 
tumn they returned to Leifs Booths. In the 
spring of the year 1004, Thorvald undertook a 
more extended expedition to the "eastward, and 
towards the north along the land."t "Opposite 
to a cape," they were driven ashore by foul 
weather, and their vessel wrecked. Thorvald and 
his men spent much time in repairing the 
damaged dragon, after which they set up the 
broken keel as a landmark on the cape, and 
called the place Kialarnes, or Keel Cape. 
From here he seems to have crossed Cape Cod 
Bay to the Plymouth side and proceeded up the 
coast to the vicinitv of Boston. Here the Norse- 



*The term "corn" with the Norsemen meant any kind of 
cereal grain; as, rye, barley, wheat, etc. The expression 'corn 
barn" could therefore embrace a variety of grain,.not neces- 
sarily Indian corn; but since maize was the only great 
staple raised by the Indians, the chances are, that is what 
is meant. This is "thumb mark" number two indicating 
the location of Vinland within the corn belt. 

tDe Costa, Eafn and others believe that this indicates a 
voyage northward around Cape Cod, where they were 
blown ashore and left their broken keel standing upon the 
beach as a land-mark to be found later by the Karlsefni 
expedition. This is, as stated above, treading on dangerous 
ground, with nothing to gain; so we may pass it without 
discussion. 



ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 51 

men had their first experience with the natives, 
scornfully spoken of as Skraellings.^* Thorvald 
and his men surprised and captured eight of these 
despised American Red Men — which the^^ of course 
were — and without any cause whatever, put them 
to death. This ill-starred act was speedily aveng- 
ed by their enraged kinmen, who made a furious 
onslaught on the bloody invaders. They were, 
however, repulsed; but not before the chieftain, 
Thorvald , fell mortally wounded. f "I have got- 
ton an arrow under my arm," said he, ''for an 
arrow fled between the ship and the shield, in 



*Skr^lling in Norwegian signifies a weakling, a person 
of inferior physical build. The epithet as used in the pres- 
ent connection was later extended to the puny Eskimos, 
who were as yet unknown to the Norsemen, not yet having 
emerged from the interior of Greenland. See below "Libel- 
Lus Islandokum" in chapter on Allusions to Vinland 
FROM Other Sources. Crantz, llafn, De Costa and 
other writers are of the opinion that these people were 
Eskimos. They saw in them an inferior people, gradually 
pushed northward by the Indians, who had entirely dis- 
placed them when Columbus arrived. The only reason put 
forward in defence of such an argument is, that Thorvall 
called the people he found by the name which later was 
uniformly used in Greenland, when speaking of the natives 
there* Just as though he should be expected to waste his 
time in ethnological classifications of "weaklings" in Yin- 
land! In Norse eyes, they [Eskimos and Indians alike] 
certainly must have appeared with many points in 
common, a mighty poor set— ''Skrjiellings" all of them. 
The Eskimos appear for ages to have lived as a sub-polir 
race; and as for the Vinland natives, they undoubtedly 
were Algonquin Indians. 

jThough Thorvald and many of his men had been bap- 
tized, the religion of the "White Christ" does not seem to 
have had any specially softening influence upon their 



52 ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 

under my arm, and there is the arrow, and it will 
prove a mortal wound to me." Speaking thus, the 
bold son of Erik died ; and his comrades gave him 
a Christian burial at a promontory which they 
dubbed Krossanes, or Cross Cape, from the cross 
erected above the grave. Thorvald's crew later 
returned to Greenland, having but a sorry tale 
to tell Leif. 

Yet another son of Erik, Thorstein, with his 
wife Gudrid and a crew of twenty-five men, made 
an attempt to overcome perverse fate and colon- 
ize Vinland. This was in the 3^ear 1005. His 
primary object was undoubtedly to find Thor- 
vald's body and carry it home for burial in con- 
secrated soil. However this maj^ be, so sore was 
his ship beset by storm and foul weather that 

. -^ ., neither Vinland nor Krossanes 

Thorstein Eriks- r ^ n^v, ^i. ^ i 

sou's Attempt was lound. The weather-tossed 

^.. \^ ^/^^- mariners at lene^th sought ref- 
Vinland, lOOo. ^ ^ 

uge on the Greenland coast, at 

LysiQord in the western settlement, where Thors- 
tein and many of his crew were carried oif by an 



cruel mode of warfare. Human life sat as easy upon their 
hands as in days of yore. It is decidedly gratifying at this 
point to hear how Thorvald ordered the defence of his 
ship. "We shall put up our war screens al;)ng the gun- 
wales of the ship," he said, "and defend ourselves as best 
we can, but not use our weapons much against them." 
The darli mood seems to have been dispelled, and pity for 
an inferior people lighting at a disadvantage, stays the 
bloody hand. 



ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 53 

unknown epidemic. The sorrowing Gudrid later 
returned with her husband's body to their late 
home on Eriksfjord. 

But such discouraging beginnings by no means 
put an end to Norse colonization in Vinland. The 
most serious attempt, and withal the most im- 
portant, was yet to be made under the leadership 
of the illustrious Thorfinn Karlsefni. He was a 
merchant prince of Iceland, a man of many noble 
qualities, descended from one of the proudest fami- 
lies there. A trading voyage brought him to 
Brattalid in 1006, where he spent the winter at 
the hospitable family-seat of the departed Erik. 
Here he met and immediately fell in love with 
Gudrid of our former acquaintance, who was a 
"grave and dignified woman, and therewith sensi- 
ble, and knew well how to carry herself among 
strangers." The marriage was celebrated the 
same winter, and in this way Thorfinn inherited 
whatever right or claim the deceased Thorstein 
might have had to Vinland. "The conversation 
often turned, at Brattalid, on the discovery of 
Vinland the Good, and they said that a voyage 
there had great hope of gain." Thorfinn, a pro- 
fessional trader and merchant, could not let such 
a chance for increasing his wealth pass unheeded; 
and so concluded to lead a coIoua^ thither. This 
new expedition, which sailed earl\- in 1007, in- 



54 ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 

eluded besides Karlsefni and Gvidrid with their re- 

ThorfinnKarls- ^^^^^^^: ^ ^^^^^^ company of 
efni's Colony determined colonists,* number- 
1007—10. -j^g upwards of 160 souls, all 

told, carrjnng with them cattle and seed, and im- 
plements for tilling the soil. 

The little flotilla retraced the now historic 
shores of .Helluland where "there was a great 
number of foxes, "t and of Markland where they 
encountered many wild animals and "slew a 
bear." After some days Kialarnes hove in view 
and was recognized by the broken keel still stand- 
ing erect on the sandy beach. A little later a 
landing was effected and the crew given a well- 
earned rest. Meanwhile Thorfinn sent two 
Scotch thralls, Haki and Hekia, inland on a scout- 
ing expedition, with orders to return as soon as 
they should discover the true nature of the land. 
Their report was extremely favorable and in 
their estimation the land flowed with milk and 
honey. $ A permanent landing was made at a 

*There were in the company three hardy sea-captains 
who had accompanied Thorfinn from Iceland; namely, 
Snorri Thorbrandsson of Alptafjord, Bjarni Grimolfsson 
of Breidafjord, and Thorhall Gamlason of Austfjord. Oth- 
ers of special mention were, the man Thorvard and his wife 
Freydis, who was a natural daughter of Erik the Red. 

tThese animals are found throughout ail the northw^est- 
ern part of the American continent, and as such the state- 
ment is not in itself at all limiting; but the fact remains 
that they found foxes and not fairyland fal'NA in Hel- 
luland. 

J"When they returned one had in his hand a bunch of 



ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 55 

place called Stream Baj^, where they wintered. 
Fish was scarce that winter and by spring some 
few dissatisfied spirits deserted the colony and 
set out for Greenland.* But the main body, still 
undaunted, set a southward course and ''sailed 
along till they came to a river flowing out from 
the land through a lake into the sea, where there 
were sandy shoals, where it was impossible to 
pass up, except with the highest tide."t Thorfinn's 
perseverance was well repaid. For here were 



grapes, and the other an ear of corn.— De Costa, p. 53. Here 
again, a mention of corn. 

*The colonists had depended on finding abundant supplies 
of fish in the New World. However, the winter passed, and 
touch of the summer with it, and no fish. Let the early 
Viking have all the food and drink he cared for, and he 
would be content almost anywhere; but without these in 
abundance, he could see no virtue in the fairest of lauds. 
Thorhall the hunter, one of Erik the Red's liegemen, headed 
the malcontents. One day he sang as he carried water to 
the ship; 

"People said when hither I 
Came, that I the best 
Drink would have, but the land 
It justly becomes me to blame; 
1, a warrior, am now obliged 
To bear the pail; 
Wine touches not my lips. 
But I bow down to the spring." 
Later in the summer, together with some seven or eight 
of his satellites, he sailed for home; but storm drove the 
ship ashore on the Irish coast, where they were all enslaved. 
During the first year out, a son was born unto Thorfinn 
and Gudrid. This child Snorro became the ancestor of 
a multitude of Norwegian and Danish great men; such as, 
the antiquarian Finn Magnussen and the sculptor Bertel 
Thorwaldsen . 
tSome antiquarians take this to mean Mount Hope Bay. 



56 ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 

'^self-sown wheat" in patches in the lowlands 
along the shore; while in the higher places grapes 
were abundant. The streams too teemed with 
fish and the woods were full of game.* Above the 
lake a place was chosen "where houses w^ere erected 
in anticipation of winter; but this second winter 
turned out to be so mild that'* there was no snow, 
and all their cattle fed themselves on the grass."! 
A profitable barter sprang up with the Skraell- 
ings, who were eager to exchange valuable pelts 
for worthless bits of red cloth and other trink- 
ets. But thej^ soon came to blows. For one day 
' 'a great number of Skraellings' ships v^ere seen 
coming from the south like a rushing torrent, all 
the polest turned from the sun, and they all yelled 



The TauntoDv River passes through it, and reaches the sea 
by way of Pocasset River and Seaconnet Passage. 

*"They dug pits where the land began, and where the 
land was highest; and when the tide went down, there 
were sacred fish in the pits." The sag-a here describes an 
ingenious method adopted by the colonists to catca Kew 
England halibut. The Icelandic word was "helgir fiskar," 
i. e. holy fish. The modern Dano-Norwegian is Helleflyndre. 

jThis seems to be a parallel to Leif Eriksson's winter in 
Vinland and the explanation given for that instance will 
apply here. The winter may indeed have appeared much 
milder to these people coming from regions of almost per- 
petual ice and snow than the case really warranted. But it 
does not seem in the least surprising that their cattle could 
"rough it" through winter; for the cattle of Iceland and 
Greenland must have been inured to much lower temper- 
atures than they auffered in New England. 

:|:The "poles" here referred to were strange weapons— the 
"deamon's head"— spoken of by Mr. Schoolcraft in his 
Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, used by the old 



ATTEMPTS AT EXPlvORATION. 57 

very loud." The colonists rallied around their 
chiefs and a furious hand to hand struggle ensued. 
We are told that the Norsemen, who usually 
knew no fear, were for once seized by panic, and 
actually left the battlefield ignominiously routed, 
when they were rallied by the undaunted Freydis , 
who by her *'baerserker"* actions so terrified the 
superstitious natives that they fled headlong to 
their canoes. The colonists were not a second 
time molested ; but such inroads had the SkrasU- 
ings made on their strength that it was conclud- 
ed to abandon the 3^oung colony. On this return 
voyage occurred the much lamented loss of noble 
Bjarni Grimolfsson and a great part of his crew.f 
Karlsefni reached Greenland in safety, wherefrom 
he proceeded to his old home in Iceland. There 
his son Snorro, who was three years old when 
they left Vinland, became a man of much import- 
ance. 



time Algonquins. This consisted of a heavy mass of rock 
sewed up in a skin and attached to a pole. At close quar- 
ters it could be plunged with disastrous results into an 
enemy's boat or upon his head, causing both confusion and 
death. One of our most remarkable "thumb-marks." 

♦From bferserk, or bare-shirt. Many of the bravest and 
wildest of the early Northmen had a strange fashion of 
working themselves up into a frenzy before engaging in 
battle. They would blindly strike away at any obstacle in 
their way, and soon became oblivious to pain, heat or c^ld. 
As shirts were stripped on such occasions, we may readily 
see the significance of the word. 

tBjarni's ship was attacked by worms (the teredo) and 
began to sink. "They had a boat which was smeared with 



58 ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 

The next chapter of Yinland history is written 
in blood, and Frej^dis acts the part of the evil 
genius. As the story goes, the brothers Helgi 
and Finnbogi arrived from Norway about the 
time that Karlsefni returned to Greenland. The 
restless Freydis planned a nevsr expedition in 
which she induced the brothers to take part. An 
agreement was reached specifying that each 
(Freydis and the brothers) should have thirty 
fighting men, besides w^omen. **But Freydis 
broke this, and had five men more, and concealed 
them; and the brothers knew nothing of it until 
they arrived at Yinland." The brothers arrived 



sea oil, for worms do not attack that. They went into the 
boat, and then saw that it could not hold them all. Then 
said Bjarni, «as the boat will not hold more than half of our 
men, it is my counsel that lots should be drawn for those to 
go into the boat, for it shall not be according to rank.' This, 
they all thought so generous an offer, that none would op- 
pose it. They then did so that lots were drawn, and it f e 1 
to Bjarni to go into the boat, and the half of the men with 
him, for the boat had not room for more. But when they 
had gotten into the boat, an Icelandic man that was in the 
ship, said: 'Dost thou mean Bjarni to leave me here?' 
Bjarni said: 'So it seems.' Then said the other: 'Very 
different was the promise to my father, when I went with 
thee from Iceland, than thus to leave me, for thou said we 
shall both share the same fate.' Bjarni said: Tt shall not 
be thus; go down into the boat and I will go up into the 
ship, since I see that thou art so anxious to live.' Then 
Bjarni went up into the ship and this man down into the 
boat, and after that they went on their voyage, until they 
came to Dublin in Ireland, and there told these things; but 
it is most people's belief that Bjarni and his companions 
were lost in the worm sea, for nothing was heard of them 
after that time." Narrative of Thorfinn Karlsefni, 
De Costa's Version, pp. 63-64. 



ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 59 

at Leifs booths in advance of Freydis, and natur- 
ally enough took posession of the huts. They 
were busily engaged carrying in their winter 
stores when she appeared upon the scene. "Then 
said Freydis, 'why are you carrying your things 
in here?' 'Because we thought/ said they, 'that 
the whole of the agreement with us should be 
held.' She said, 'Leif lent the houses to me, not to 
you.' Then said Helgi, 'in evil, w^e brothers can- 
not stive with thee.' " With this they bore their 
goods away with them, and erected new huts 
farther from the beach. The little community 
spent the autumn months in cutting timber for 
their cargo, and but little time was given for a 
A Bloody Chap, ^^newal of the quarrel. But 
ter of with the coming of winter all 

^'"'Ttii-J2^''^^' these things were changed. "The 
brothers proposed to have some 
games lor amusement to pass time. So it was 
done for a time, till discord came among them, 
and the games were given up and none went from 
one house to the other; and things w^ent on so 
during a great part of the winter." Fre3^dis now 
determined the destruction of Finnbogi and Helgi 
w4th all their followers. She complained to her 
husband "that the brothers had given her evil 
words and struck her," and demanded their blood 
in atonement for the insult. The weak-minded 
Thorvard, stung to exasperation by his violent 
spouse, made a dastardly night attack upon the 



60 ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION. 

unsuspecting brothers; seized them together with 
all their men, and put them all to death in cold 
blood. To cap the tragedy, Freydis with her own 
hand brained five women whom even Thorvard 
had not the heart to slay. This deed of blood ac- 
complished, she seized the murdered ones' staunch 
ship and goods and returned home to Eriks^ord, 
where she lived detested by all who knew the 
story and forsaken by even her kinsmen. For, so 
concludes the saga, w^hen Leif learned the w^hole 
truth he said: ** 'I do not care to treat my sister 
as she deserves; but this I wdll foretell them, that 
their posterity w411 never thrive.' And it went so 
that nobody thought anything of them but evil, 
from that time." 

With this deed of blood end what are called the 
Major Narratives; but, before we take final 
leave of this part of our discussion, something 
should be said about the allusions made to Vin- 
land by other writers. 



Allusions to Vinland from Other 
<. Sources. 



** 'They called the country Vinland.' 
'We know it,' said I, *! am a Yinlander.' " 

—Bayard Taylor. 

It is difficult to pick up a single Icelandic work 
on history, written within the range of two to 
three hundred years after Leif s discovery, which 
does not contain some reference to Vinland. The 
whole body of Icelandic history from this period 
is full of such allusions. The people generally ap- 
pear to have been so well acquainted with the 
details of the discovery that historians, incidental- 
ly touching upon the subject in the course of their 
writings, found it unnecessary to pause for ex- 
planation. Greenland and Vinland were localities 
as matter-of-fact to them as Japan and China 
now are to us. 

As Ari Thorgilsson Frodhi was born in the year 
1067, his Landxama-bok* and Islendinga-bok 
were written while the memory of Vinland was 
still fresh in the minds of all. Nothing, therefore, 



♦Several references to America appear in this work. One 
describing the adventures of Ari.Maarsson in Hvitraraanna" 
land has been mentioned above. Of more importance is 
the following passage taken from part III., ch. X. of this 



62 AL.1.USIONS TO YINLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 

could be more significant than the testimony that 
they bear. The Islendinga-bok, unfortunate- 
ly, is no longer in existence. This is of great re- 
gret to scholars who feel pretty certain that it 
contained much valuable material pertaining to 
Yinland. For there remains, from Ari's pen, an 
abridgement of the work "Libelous Islandorum" 
— which makes very pertinent mention of that 
"Libel 1 us country. Speaking of Erik the 

Islandorum." Red and his followers in Green- 
land, Ari says: ''They found there, both in the 
east and the w^est part of the land, -vestiges of 
human habitations, fragments of boats and stone 
implements; so from this one might draw the con- 
clusion that the people of the race which inhabited 
Yinland, and which theGreenlanders(i. e.the Norse 
discoverers) called Skraellings, must have roamed 
there."* This passage is important indeed! For 
the vsrriter certainly had in mind the ferocious 
American natives of Karlsefui's day, stories of 
whose prowess were still fresh in the people's 
minds. If we are to take the historian Thorfaeus 
as authority, the Skraellings, or Eskimos, did 
not make their appearance in the Norse settle- 
ments in Greenland much before the vear 1349. 



entirely reliable genealogical table: "Their son was Thordr 
Hest-hofdhi, father of Karlsefni, who found Vinland the 
Good." 

*Rafn in his Antiquitates Americans p. 207, says 
that they "fun'do thar manna vister bathi austr ok vestr a 



ALLUSIONS TO YINLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 63 

This would give Ari ample grounds for inferring 
that these remains had been left by a people akin 
to the natives known to live in Yinland. 

Snorri Sturlason wrote his Heimskringla near- 
ly a hundred years after Ari's Islendinga-bok 
appeared. He devotes a brief chapter of this great 
work to the introduction of Christianity in Green- 
land, wherein he finds occasion to tell how Leif 
Eriksson received the cognomen "the Lucky." In 
the words of Snorri: ''That same spring, King 
The Olaf (Trygvasson) sent Leif to- 

Heimskringla gether with a priest and other 
book-learned men to Greenland, there to proclaim 
Christianity; but Leif did not alone arrive safe in 
Greenland that summer, he found also on the 
YOjage Yinland the Good, and saved some ship- 
w^recked folk, who were driven about helpless in a 
wreck. Afterward they called him Leif the Lucky, 
for", etc.* Another document, the Kristni Saga, 
supplementing the Landnama-bok, and also assign- 
ed to Ari Frodhi, contains in substance the same 
story. And it is not at all unlikely that Snorri 's 
statement is borrowed from it. 



landi ok k?eiplabrot ok steiosmithi, that es af thvi ma seilja, 
at thar hafdhi thessconar thjoth farith es Vinland heter 
bygt, ok Grsenlendinger calla Skrelinga." 

*Heimskringla, chapter LI. Snorri writes as though 
he believed Leif discovered Vinland and saved the ship- 
wrecked sailors on his voyage to Greenland. This is of 
course a mistake; but does not weaken the statement as 
far as the existence of Vinland is coaceroed. Again, in a 



64 ALLUSIONS TO YINLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 

The Eyrbyggja Saga, written round about the 
year 1250, furnishes a good picture of early Ice- 
land. It dwells upon the settlement of Breida- 
ijord and other sections of the island; but is especi- 
ally interesting because of the inside view it gives 
of the tenth-century Icelander's home-life, his 
feuds with his neighbors, his relations with for- 
eign lands, and finally his religious tenets. The 

The Eyrbyg-gja Eyrbyggja mentions the Ice- 
-aga. lander Thorbrand, whose two 

sons Snorri and Thorleif went to Greenland. And 
concludes by saying, that Snorri later went to 
Vinland the Good with Karlsefni, and was killed 
in a battle with the Skraellings.* From the nar- 
rative of Karlesfni's Saga we will remember the 
flight of Karlesfiii and his men from the Skraell- 
ings. Freydis brought up the rear of the panic- 
stricken Norsemen and followed them into the 
woods. Here she found the body of Snorri Thor- 
brandsson, who had been killed by the Skraellings, 
for ''there stood a flat stone stuck in his head." 

Another early document, Grettis Saga, makes 



broader sense, he may have considered the expedition to 
Vinland as a part of Leif's Greenland voyage, since it was 
a direct consequence of the latter. 

♦'Efter forliget imellem Eyrbyggerne og Alftfjordingerne 
toge T. orbrands sunner, Snorre og Thorleif, til Gronland. 
Efter den sidste er Kimbevaag imellem joklerne opkaldt, 
og han boeJe i Gronland til s n alderdom, men Snorre tog 
til Vinland hint Gode med Karlsefne, og faldt der 1 en strid 
med Skrsellingerne."— N. M. Petersen, Fort.elling om 
Eyrbyggerne, p. 82, 



ALLUSIONS TO YLNLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 65 

mention of the sturdy old sea-captain Thorhall 
Gamlason who, it will be bom in mind, came 

^ ... c, with Karlsefni from Iceland and 

Grettis Saga. 

accompanied him to Vmland. 
After the colony ^vas abandoned, says the 
saga, this worthy returned to Iceland, settled 
on his old home-stead there, and was ever after 
known as Thorhall the Yinlander.* 

Nor was the knowledge of the discovery limited 
to the people of Greenland and Iceland. Before 
1073, its fame was spoken throughout the whole 
Scandinavian North. For in that year Adam von 
Bremen published his ^'Historia Ecclesiastica" 
in which he gave an account of the conversion 
of the Northern kiitgdoms. While compiling this 
w^ork, Adam made a trip to Denmark, and was 
well received at the court of King Svend Estridsen. 

As this monarch came to the throne in 1047, 
the visit must have taken place between that year 
and 1073. Adam heard some marvelous stories 
up there in the North; and, like the scholar that 
he was, wrote them down. All these fragments of 
history and geography were brought together 
under the title ''De situ Danl^" and appended to 
his church history. The account abounds in 
Adam von statements that often sound 
Bremen's "I)e situ almost incredible; he accord- 
ingly hastens to inform his read- 
ers that no part of it is guess-work, but ''based 



*Grettis Saga. pp. 22, TO. 



66 Ai^i^USIONS TO VINLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 

Upon the trustworthy reports of the Danes."* 
Adam speaks of Yinland as an island (region), so 
called from the wild grapes growing there. King 
Svend told him, he continues, that these grapes 
made excellent w4ne. Furthermore, corn grew in 
that strange region without cultivation. f These 
things must have sounded marvelous in European 
ears; especially as he adds: *' After this island 
nothing inhabitable is met with in that ocean, 
but everything beyond is covered with unendur- 
able ice and boundless darkness."! Adam von 
Bremen's account becomes very significant when 
we consider that he got his information from men 
who stood very close to the \;oyagers, and who 
may even have had it from the mouth of some sur- 
vivor of these expeditions. 

With the Publication of the*'HiSTORiA EccLESi- 
astica" the Holy See's attention was drawn to 
the Scandinavian North, and we read that new 
dioceses in "the islands of the ocean" wxre estab- 
lished. In 1112 Erik Upssi (Gnupsson) was ap- 
pointed "bishop of Greenland and Yinland in 



* — "noQ fabulosa opinione, sed certa comperimus rela- 
tione Danorum."— Descriptio insularum aquilonis, cap. 
38 apud HiSTORiA Ecclesiastica. 

t'Traeterea uDam adhuc insulam (regionam) recitavit a 
multis in eo repertam oceano, quae dicitur Vinland, eo quid 
ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum bonum gerentes; nam et 
fruges ibi seminatas abundare."— Id. cap. 38. 

JPost quam insulam terra nulla invenitur habitabilis in 
illo oceano, sed omnia quae ultra sunt glacie intolerabili ac 
caligine immensa plena sunt.— Id. cap. 38. 



ALLUSIONS TO VIXLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 67 

parti bus infideliuniy The Annales Islan- 
DORUM Regi I and several other histories mention 
Other Men t on that Bishop Erik left his bishop- 
of Vinland ric in Greenland and went to 
Vinland, ostensibly for the purpose of converting 
the. heathen.* After this, from time to time 
through the twelfth, thirteenth and first half of 
the fourteenth century, mention is made of the 
New World. As late as 1347 there came "a ship 
from Greenland, which had sailed to Markland, 
and there were eighteen men aboard." This ves- 
sel wras doubtless one of the many making regu- 
lar trips to Markland after timber. 'And had it 
not been driven from its course and forced to seek 
shelter in Iceland, ^ 'the probability is,*' as Reeves 
says, ''that this voyage would never have found 
mention in Icelandic chronicles, and all knowlege 
of it must have vanished as completely as did the 
colony to which the Markland visitors belonged. "f 



*Dr. Enander says that Bishop Erik "went to Vinland to 
strengthen the Norsemen there in their Christian faith." 
Nothing should please us more than to have this statement 
substantiated with proof ; for that would, of course, as the 
writer asserts, definitely prove that the discoverers had suc- 
ceeded in maintaining colonies for 114 years, at the least. 
But, alas! this appears only to be another of the specula- 
tions that have done so much to discredit the whole story. 
Colonies may have been attempted and established after 
Ereydis' day; and may even have lingered down to 1121. 
One thing, however, is certain, and that is, that no proof to 
this effect has yet been forthcoming. See Horsford on 

NORUMBEGA. 

t^See Reeves, Finding of Yinland the Good. 1900. 

6* 



68 ALLUSIONS TO YINLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 

Accounts of this nature show that voyages be- 
tween Greenland and the mainland were continu- 
ed well into the fourteenth century. 

Finally, there are still extant several Icelandic 
treatises on geography, written between the 
twelfth and fourteenth centuries, describing- the 
earth according to the notions ofthose early days. 
Though faultj^ in many particulars, these docu- 
ments do show that the Icelanders had a pretty 
clear understanding of Yinland's w^hereabouts. 
In what professes to be *'A Brief Description of 
THE Whole Earth" we read: * 'Beyond Green- 
land, southward, is Helluland; beyond that is 
Early Geograph- Markland; from thence it is not 

ical Treatises, ^^^ ^^ Vinland," etc. Again in 
the collection of manuscripts called the ''Gripla:" 
"South from thence (i. e. Greenland) is Helluland, 
which is called Skraellings' land. Thence it is not 
far to Vinland the Good, which some think goes 
out to Africa. Between Vinland and Greenland, is 
Ginnungagah, w^hich runs from the sea called 
Mare Oceanum, and surrounds the whole 
earth."* 

The historical and geographical fragments 
enumerated above, while neither any too full nor 
any too numerous, are yet sufficient to convince 
all fair-minded scholars of the existence of a well- 



*These documents may be found in Rafn's Antiquitates 
Americanae respectively on page 283 and page 292. 



ALLUSIONS TO VINLAND FROM OTHER SOURCES. 69 

grounded general knowledge of the discovery all 
the way from Adam von Bremen down to and 
long after the life-time of Hauk Erlendsson, cover- 
ing a period of something like three centuries. 



The Decline and Loss of the 
Greenland Colonies. 



"In that drear spot, grim Desolation's lair. 

No sweet remain of life encheers the sight: 

The dancing heart's blood in an instant there 

Would freeze to marble. Mingling day and night 
(Sweet interchange which makes our labors light,) 

Are there unknown; while in the summer skies 

1 he sun rolls ceaselessly round his heavenly height, 

Nor ever sets till from the scene he flies, 

And leaves the long bleak night of half the year to rise.'* 

—Henry Kirke White. 

The development, decline and loss of the Green- 
land colonies may be told in a very few words. 
The two settlements gradually enlarged their 
boundaries till all the best lands between modern 
Frederiksdal and Bredefjord had been incorporat- 
ed. Thorfaeus Thormodus is authority for the 
statement that early in the fourteenth century the 
OsT Bygd embraced nineteen peopled fjords, num- 
bering in all one hundred and ninety villae, or 
farmsteads. These were distributed into twelve 
church districts, eleven having small local churches, 
the twelfth, being the seat of the Gardar bishop- 
ric, having a cathedral church. In all, the settle- 
ment seems to have contained between thirty-five 
hundred and four thousand souls. The Vest Bygd 



DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 71 

was smaller and more sparsely settled, embracing 

Development ^^ more than nine peopled 

of the Gree iland fjords with about one hundred 

farmsteads, distributed into 

four parishes. Its population, very probably, 

never exceeded two thousand souls. 

The four hundred years of Greenland history are 
little else than a tedious account of feuds and 
murders — in this respect very similar to Icelandic 
history. The early colonists carried on a lucra- 
tive trade with the mother-country and Norway, 
and became both thrifty and well-to-do. The 
:Qord-districts supported large numbers of cattle, 
sheep and goats, while the waters along the shore 
abounded in fish, whales and many species of 
seals. The islands and inland, moreover, teemed 
with white bears, foxes, sables, martins and other 
important fur-bearing animals. Valuable pelts 
v^hale oil, skins, eider dowm and, according to 
some, butter and cheese were exported in exchange 
for other necessaries of life. Just how far north- 
ward the Greenlanders penetrated in their explor- 
ing and hunting expeditions is difficult to say. 
The explorations of Sir Edw^ard Parry and Cap- 
tain Graah have, however, thrown some interest- 
ing light on this question. Upon the island of 
Kingitorsook in Baffin's Bay, Avith a north lati- 
tude of 56 Deg. 55 Min., these explorers found 
several artificial earth-mounds surmounted by 
stones bearing runic inscriptions. One of these 



72 DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 

reads: — ''Erling Sigh vats on and Bjarni Thordar- 
son and Eindrid Oddson raised these marks and 
cleared ground* on Saturday before Ascension 
week, 1135.t But Prof. Rafn narrates still great- 
er achievements in the way of polar exploration, 
The Northernmost which go far tO show that 

Limit of Norse Scandinavian Nansens and 

Exploration iQ 

America. Nordenskjolds are not con- 

fined to our generation. He describes an expedi- 
tion made in the year 1166 under the auspices of 
the Gardar priests. ^'Thej made their way into the 
most distant portion of the sea, and sav^ glaciers 
south of them as far as the eye could reach. They 
also saw indications of the Skrasllings, but did not 
land, on account of the number of the bears.."! It 
would appear from calculations made at the time, 
that the expedition attained the surprisingly high 
latitude of 75 Deg. 46 Min. 

The first mention we have of Skrasllings in Green- 
land dates back to a hundred years before this 
expedition, when hunters occasionally encounter- 
ed them in the course of distant hunting-trips. 
But we hear of no serious conflicts with them 
prior to the middle of the fourteenth century. In 



*Some writers draw the conclusion from this expression— 
"cleared ground"— that Greenland was formerly densely 
wooded. Now to my mind it appears much more probable 
that they referred to an article both troublesome and num- 
erous on those shores— stones. 

tLaing, Heimskringla, i, 152. 

JQuoted by me from DeCosta, p. XXX, iii. 



DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 73 

the year 1339, according to Thorfasus, they sud- 
denly made their appearance in the Vest Bygd, 
where they killed eighteen of the colonists and 
carried off two boys and much cattle. This is our 
last report of the ill-fated settlement, which must 
have been destroyed shortly after this time. The 
emboldened Skr^Uings rapidly extended their 
limits, destroying all outlying farmsteads. In 
1379 they made a concerted attack upon the OsT 
Bygd, causing a terrible destruction of life and 
property. The invaders were aided in this work 
of extermination by a chain of unfortunate circum- 
stances. The ravages of the Black Death began to 
be felt throughout Europe in 1348. The dread 
scourge was everywhere present — on the sea as 
Causes Leading well as on land. Ships drifted 
stru?tion?Mhe aimlessly about the high seas, 
Greenland Colo- their crews dead and putrifying 
nies. Q^ deck, carrying ruin to the 

shores they chanced to strike. In this way the 
disease reached the Scandinavian North and Ice- 
land, where it was virulant beyond all power of 
description. Though Greenland appears to have 
escaped the plague, she could not avoid the conse- 
quences that it carried in its wake.* For years 
sea-faring was almost paralyzed in the North, and 



*Crantz is of the opinion that the Black Death did reach 
Greenland, and that it carried away many of the popula- 
tion. Many other good authorities, however, positively 
aflBrm the contrary. 



74 DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 

nowhere were the attendant evils felt more keen- 
ly than in Greenland. Poverty took the place of 
almost opulence, and ruin seemed imminent to the 
ill-starred 6sT Bygd, already hard pressed by the 
Eskimos. About the same time the home govern- 
ment of Norway-Denmark committed a blunder 
that did much to hasten the impending doom. 
Queen Margarete, our 'Northern Semiramis,' 
daughter of Yaldemar III, king of Denmark, and 
wife of King Haakon VIII of Norway, succeeded 
to the rule of these countries in 1380 and 1387. 

Discreet though she generally was, Margarete 
made the traffic with Iceland, the Fseroes and 
Greenland *'a royal monopoly which could only be 
carried on in ships belonging to, or licensed by, the 
sovereign."* Merchants not lessees of the govern- 
ment were prosecuted by the Crown and forced to 
abandon their trade with Greenland altogether. 
The forlorn colony sank gradually into wretched- 
ness, and fell an easy prey to the swarms of Eski- 
mos who completed its ruin during the first or 
second decade of the fifteenth century. 

Before we leave Greenland clying for Greenland 
dead, a more than passing interest demands a 
brief halt for a final gUmpse at the OsT Bygd, as re- 
corded in a narrative of northern exploration, 
published at Venice in 1558. This work contains 
the voyages of the celebrated Zeno brothers, and 



*Laing, Heim-kringla I. 147. 



DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 75 

is published under the rather lengthy title, ^'De i 
conimentarii i del Viaggio in Persiadi M- 
Caterine Zeno il K. et dello scoprimento dell' 
Isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engronelandar 
Estotilanda et Icaria, fatto sot to il Polo 
Artico de due fratelli Zeni^'* etc. Now the 
Zen OS were men of quality at Venice. The father 
of this particular generation, Pietro Dracone, is 
famous in history as a commander of the Christian 
Ivcague in its struggle against the Turks during- 
the fourteenth century. The sons. Carlo, Nicolo 
and Antonio, were likewise of great renown. 
They added much to their familj^ glory in the war 
with Gonoa (1378-80), and Carlo in particular 
became an object of worship by his countrymen. 
About the j^ear 1390 Nicolo fitted out a vessel and 
started to see the world. Soon after entering the 
Atlantic he was caught in a storm and driven: 
along northward, until at length the ship was 
cast upon the Faeroes and wrecked. Only the 
timely arrival of Sir Henry Sinclair, King 
Haakon VI 's representative in Scottish waters,, 
saved the Venetians from the fate of shipwrecked 
mariners, usual in those barbarous times — plun- 
der and death. The grateful Nicolo entered this 
high-born noble's service, soon rising to the posi- 
tion of commander of Sinclair's entire fleet. This 
new life was pleasing to the adventurous Vene- 
tian, who sent such stirring descriptions of North- 
ern life to his brothers that Antonio also conclud 



76 DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 

ed to voyage thither. He too was well received 
and remained in Sinclair's pay fourteen 3'ears, re- 
turning to Venice in 1406. Nicolo, meanwhile, 
^was seized with a desire to visit Greeland of which 
he had heard so much from his conversations with 
the island Norse. The voyage to the OsT Bygd 
occurred in the month of July in what appears to 
have been 1394. This, it will be recollected, was 
many years after the Eskimos had destro3^ed the 
Vest Bygd and some years after the Greenland 
trade was declared a royal monopol3^ Nicolo 
Nicolo Zeno in remained there only a short 

Greenland, time as the climate of this high 
1394 

latitude proved too much for 

his constitution; his death occurred in the Faeroes 
the very next year. Antonio nov;^ succeeded to his 
deceased brother's office; and he, too, made a voy- 
age of discovery in the Atlantic Ocean, which will 
be mentioned later on. Suffice it here to say, that 
letters and charts describing these voyages were 
sent from time to time to their brother Carlo at 
home in Venice. These were placed away among 
the family archives, and more than a century' lat- 
er, in 1558, such as had not been destroyed were 
published by Nicolo Zeno, a direct descendant of 
Antonio. Of great interest is the brothers' saiHng 
chart, upon which we find the Faeroes designated 
as Frislanda, the Shetlands as Estlanda and 
Greenland as Engronlant, or Groxlanda. The 
stor>' of Nicolo's visit is accepted by the critics as 



DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 77 

entirely authentic. In man^^ details it is corrobor- 
ated by a description of Greenland from the pen of 
Ivar Baardsen, written late in the fourteenth 
centur3% but which did not find its way into Eu- 
rope till two hundred years later. Among other 
surprising things in Nicolo's book, we read that 
"he found there amonastery and a church, dedicat- 
ed to St. Thomas(for St. Olaus), close by a hill, 
which vomits smoke like Vesuvius and Etna.* 
Here is found a hot spring, used in heating the 
church and the friars' dwellings." He further 
states that the water came into the kitchen hot 
enough for cooking purposes. It was even used 
in heating greenhouses, which supplied the monks 
with an abundance of succulent vegetables and 
southern fruits. Such statements as the above 
would never occur to a person fabricating his 



*To talk about volcanoes in Greenland vomiting smoke 
and fire like a Vesuvius and an Etna, sounds at first read- 
ing as passing strange. But, after all, there is nothing 
surprising about such a statement. Iceland has for ages 
been noted for her volcanoes, geysers and hot springs; the 
whole island is in reality nothing more nor less than one 
large lava field. We bear in mind how Gunnbjorn's Sker- 
ries, lying between Iceland and Greenland were totally de- 
stroyed by volcanic action in 1456. Then Greenland in our 
day is not without thermal waters. One of the most inter- 
esting of these groups of hot springs is situated on an 
island at the -mouth of Ounartok Fjord. As far as we 
know, Greenland has no active volcanoes now; but there is 
evidence of past activity to a marked degree, in the compo- 
sition of the soil. A careful exploration of the interior 
would undoubtedly bring to light extinct craters, their real 
character hidden by mantles of ice and snow. 



78 DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 

story out of whole cloth. For who, never having 
seen such things, would have thought of placing 
volcanoes and hot springs in icy Greenland! They 
<iertainly add strength to the narrative. With 
this glimpse of the OsT Bygd in 1394 we leave 
Greenland to her decay and oblivion. 

More than a hundred years passed away before 
an 3^ serious attempt was made to reach the lost 
colony. Erik Walkendorf, Archbishop of Thrond- 
hjem, first set on foot the project to re-establish 
communication with Greenland; but as he fell into 
disfavor at Court and went on a pilgrimage to 
Rome in 1521 to escape the king's wrath, nothing 
was for a time accomplished. Seven difierent 
kings sent out expeditions, which all for one rea- 
son or another failed to gain a foothold on those 
dreaded shores. So it was reserved for the in- 
domitable Norwegian clergyman and missionary 
Hans Egede to renew communi- 
sionary cation with Greenland, and this 

Hans Egede in he did in 1721 after overcoming 
' *" ' almost insurmountable obsta- 
cles. But the countrymen he sought had forever 
disappeared, or the last remnant of the Norse 
blood been absorded by the Eskimos now in full 
possession of the shoreline. What he found was 
ruined farmsteads and villages, churches and 
monasteries— not a sign of white men any- 
where. 

OfErik the Red's familv-seat at Brattalid there 



DECLINE AND LOSS OF THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 79 

remains to our day a cluster of crumbling, roof- 
less stone-houses. Thirty miles or so nearer the 
coast stands, solemn and imposing in its ruin, 
what is left of Kakortok church, once the seat of 
the Gardar bishop. Its bells must have tolled out 
the years of four centuries before they were silenc- 
ed forever. Perhaps none other of the ruins is so 
wrell preserved. The walls are massive, being all 
of four feet thick; its length measures fifty-two 
The Greenland ^^^ ^ half feet, its breadth, twen- 
Ruins. ty-six. Smaller ruins lie scat- 

tered along the coast for miles,being counted on no 
less than twenty-six fjords in what used to be OsT 
Bygd and Vest Bygd. Nor can anything bear 
more striking v^-itness of the life that was lived on 
those heartless coasts than the gravestones lying 
in fragments about the decaying churches. At 
Ikigcit a gravestone was deciphered, bearing this 
inscription: ''Here rests Hroaldr, Kolgrim's son." 
Another was found in the Igaliko church yard, 
written in runes, and interpreted: "Yigdis, Mag- 
nus' daughter, rests here, may God gladden her 
soul!" In these places— 

"Ruin, the giant, sits; while stern Dismay 

Stalks like some woe-struck man along the desert way." 

— But yet, as true guards over the graves of a de- 
parted civilization, which endured in space of time 
as long as all post-Columbian history, counted 
down to the present; as true guards over the 



80 DECLINE AND LOSS OE THE GREENLAND COLONIES. 

bones of the hardy Norsemen who first among 
Europeans dwelt at the portal of the New Contin- 
ent and were the first to tread its soil! 



The Last of Vinland 



" 'In the vast forest here, 
Clad in my warhke gear, 
Fell I upon my spear, 

O, death was grateful! 

'Thus, seamed with many scars, 
Bursting those prison bars, 
Up to its native stars 
My soul ascended I 
There from the flowing bowl 
Deep drinks the warrior's soul. 
Skoal! to the Northland! Skoal!' " 

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

The Zeno brothers' sailing chart is not limited 
to the lands named above. In it we find marked, 
at some distance southwest from Iceland and 
southeast from Greenland, an island called Icaria; 
at an equal distance beyond this again, and due 
south from Greenland, the larger island Estoti- 
land; and, finally, at nearly the same distance 
south westward from the latter, the far stretching 
country Drogio. 

When Antonio Zeno undertook his voyage of 
exploration, it was to find a much famed country, 
lying thousands of miles to the west of the Faeroes. 
A fisherman, cast on those shores by a preverse 
fate many 3^ears before, had just returned home, 
telling a marvelous tale of adventures by land and 

7 



82 THE LAST OF YINLAND. 

sea.* The Earl Sinclair was especiallj^ taken up 

. ^ • rr , with these reports and determin- 
Antonio Zeno 3 } 

Voyage of ed to set out m quest of the lands. 
^^^^TiOO^' ^^^ ^^^ experienced seaman Antonio 
was to hold chief command, and 
the fisherman, to accompanj^ the expedition in 
capacity of pilot. The latter unfortunately died 
on the eve of the departure; but the promoters of 
the venture, nothing daunted, determined to 
make the attempt without him. Fog and rough 
weather harassed them and threw them out of 
their course; but after driving before the wind for 
some days, ih^j made land on the western coast 
of a country called Icaria, possibly a Venetian 
corruption of Kerry in Ireland, which some writ- 
ers take it to have been. After leaving this place, 
they sailed six days west and then four days 
north by east, arriving at a country which An-^ 
tonio in his letters claims to have been Greenland. 
This could hardly have been the case, if we are 
to relj-- on his sailing directions; but as a point 
wholl3' immaterial to our narrative, it may just 
as well be passed over without discussion. To 
make a long stor3^ short, Zeno returned to the 
Faeroes without having found trace of the much 
sought land. But what is of greater interest is 
the fisherman's tale as recounted by Antonio in 
one of his letters to Carlo. 



♦Sometime between 1392 and 1 406. 



THE LAST OF VIXLAND. 83 

*'Twentj-six years ago," he writes, "four small 
Ashing craft were driven by storms far out to sea. 
When the winds abated they found an island, 
called Estotiland, where one of the craft was 
washed ashore and the six men comprising her 
crew taken prisoners by the natives. Thev were 
treated with kindness by their captors, who car- 
ried them to a large and well built city, where 
dwelt a people bearing every sign of culture and 
refinement.* Gold and the other metals were there 
in great abundance. They even saw Latin books 
in the royal library; but which, they add, ''no one 
could any longer read," since there was only one 
person on the whole island able to understand 
Latin, and he, an European castaway. This in- 
Adventures in dividual, having found some one 
Estotiland. among the Faeroelanders who 
was not entirely unacquainted with Latin, became 
their interpreter. The King invited them to re- 
main in his realm; and not being able to refuse the 
invitation, they of course acquiesed, and dwelt 



*John Fiske inclines toward the opinion that the "large, 
well-built city" was in reality "a large palisaded village, 
and that the chief had some books in Roman characters, a 
relic of some castaway, which he kept as a fetish." Dr. 
Enander is positive the country was one of the colonies 
established by the IS'orsemen on the American shore; that 
the Latin books had belonged to Catholic priests and 
monks carried off by the Black Death, which he believes 
claimed its victims in Yinland as well as elsewhere; and 
that the precious metals mentioned came from the land of 
the Mexican Montezuma, with whom he is inclined to be- 
lieve the Norsemen in Estotiland had commercial relations! 



84 THE LAST OF YINLAND. 

there five 3^ears before an opportunity for depar- 
ture was given. The island appeared to be some- 
what "smaller than Iceland, but more fertile, and 
had in its center a high mountain wherefrom 
flowed four streams that drained the country.'* 
There was considerable agriculture; grain is spoken 
of, and they made from it a kind of "beer." A. 
profitable commerce was carried on w^th Green- 
land, wherefrom they imported pitch (possibly 
whale oil), sulphur and furs. 

But w^here then was Estotiland? In the Zeno 
chart we find it in nearly the same latitude as 
New^foundland, and this has led some writers to 
guess upon that island. Where they expect to find 
any points of similitude betw^een Newfoundland 
and the land of the fisherman's tale is, how^ever,. 
not easy to see. For Estotiland was fertile and 
drained b^^ four rivers, rising in a mountain at the 
heart of the countrv^- and then, gold and other 
metals were abundant. Conditions like these are,, 
ever3'one of them, foreign to New^foundland as we 
know it, and for that matter, if the abundance ol 
metals is to be taken into consideration, of any 
portion of North America above Mexico. But is 



Now if the Estotilanders really were the descendants of early 
Norse settlers, they certainly had lost their native language, 
for let us remember they could not understand a word of 
what the Fseroelanders said to them. But then, that circum- 
stance might possibly be explained away in the four centu- 
ries of comparative isolation from home, and by supposed 
intimate relations with the Indians. 



THE LAST OF YIXLAND. 85 

it entirely impossible that Estotiland might have 
been part of the continent, and not an island at 
all? And that this story about gold, when taken 
with a deal of reserve, be explained av^^ay. With- 
out w^ishing to express anything like a definite 
opinion, I might yet be inclined to connect Estoti- 
land with that portion of New England which 
early geographers called Norumbega, or Norvega. 
Many early cartographers have appHed the name 
Estotiland to the entire region stretching north 
from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And Norumbega is 
variously marked on their charts all the way from 
Rhode Island to the St. Lawrence, or as including 
only a small district upon or near the 43 ^ north 
latitude, i. e. on Massachusetts Bay. Now it will 
Norumbega not occur to any rational being, 
or Norvega. gyen for a single moment, to connect 
the Estotiland visited by the Norse fishermen with 
any part of the American coast-line north of the 
St. Lawrence. For that was the location of Leif s 
Helluland! To my mind, it Estotiland is to be 
sought in America at all, we must go farther 
south. And then wlw not to Norumbega? To be 
sure, we find the two marked as separate on a 
host of old maps; but that is to be expected, being 
clearly enough the result of projecting a portion 
of the Zeno chart upon later maps. Not being 
able to reconcile the two districts to one and the 
same territory, the cartographers marked them 
as distinct regions. 



86 THE LAST OF YINLAND. 

One of the most zealous — perhaps too zealous — 
students of the Norse question in this country is 
Prof. Eben Norton Horsford. His more than or- 
dinary audacity in this field led to a heated con- 
troversA^ with a number of Massachusetts scholars^ 
drawing from his pen several works of interest on 
this question,* displa3ang at the same time the re- 
luctance with which even great men surrender 
ancient, faulty views on a subject. In making his 
defense, he gives a general summar^^ of his work 
in connection with the Norsemen, which may as 
well be quoted in full: 

"It is I believe, true that I w^as the first to dis- 
cover that the landfall of Leif Eriksson was an 
island once at the north end of Cape Cod, now 
joined to the mainland, but still existing at the 
time of Cosa (1500), Ruysch (1507) and Gosnold 
(1602); the first to trace Leifs sail across the 
mouth of Cape Cod Bay and along the coast from 
the Gurnet, past Cohasset and Nantasket, to 
Boston Harbor, w^here he grounded on an ebb 
tide, and later, with the incoming flood, passed 
through the entrance of the Boston Back Bay — 
the HOP of Thorfinn, ''a small land-locked bay, 
—salt at flood tide and fresh at ebb,"— the small 
lake three leagues around of Verrazano, "the lake 
through which a river (the Charles) flowed from 
the land to the sea," according to Leif, — to the 

*The Problem of the Norsemen, and Defences op 

NORUMBEGA. 



THE LAST OF YINLAND. 87 

site of his house at Gerry's Landing in Cambridge; 
the first to recognize in the sagas the exploration 
of the Charles River by Thorvald; the first to 

Prof, Horsford's identify the FURDUSTRAND pur- 
Summary, g^^^ ^^ Thorfinn around the 
curve southward from kjalarnes (Cape Cod) to 
Nauset Harbor, and a few leagues beyond to a 
second bay; the first to identify the strait against 
Chatham as the straumfjord of Thorfinn; the 
first to identify the extension of the present Mon- 
omoy as the straumo (Island of Currents) out- 
side of the straumfjord of Thorfinn; and lastly, 
to show that his party did not go southward be- 
yond the elbow of Cape Cod. It was also my for- 
tune to discover the great fisheries of Stony Brook, 
including more than four acres of area, evenly 
paved with closely and skillfully adjusted bowlders, 
resting on the expanse of deep vegetable mould at 
the bottom of the valW; also to find and explore 
the artificial canals strewn throughout the basin 
of the Charles; also to discover the site of the 
ancient city of Norumbega, with its walled docks 
and wharves, dam, fishway and miles of stone- 
walls along the Charles below, still in remarkably 
good preservation, once serving great Norse en- 
terprises, and now more or less in use as under- 
lying or • otherwise connected with prominent 
industries of the historic village of Watertown." 

After spending years of painstaking investiga- 
tion in the field. Prof. Horsford has satisfied him- 



88 THE LAST OF YINLAXD. 

self at least, **that Leif landed on Cape Cod in the 
year 1000 and built his house on the Charles near 
the Cambridge City Hospital; and that his coun- 
trymen and their descendants for centuries con- 
ducted extensive industries in the basin of the 
Charles and elsewhere in New England, of which 
Norumbega is one of the keys and the monument.'* 
At the mouth of Stony Brook, in the very heart of 
this interesting Ethnological field, there w^as 
erected, in 1889, a tower of the old Norse type, 
bearing a tablet with the following inscription: 



THE LAST OF YINLAND. 89 



A. D. 1000. A. D. 1889. 

NORUMBEGA. 
City. Country. Fort. River. 

Norumbega = Nor'mbega 

Indian Utterance of Norbega. i he Ancient Form 

Of Norvega, Norway, To Which The Region 

Of Yinland Was Subject. 

CITY 

At And Xear Watertown 

Where Remain To-day 
Docks. Wharves. Walls. Dams. Basins. 
COUNTRY 
Extending From Rhode Island To The St. Lawrence. 

First Seen By Bjarni Herjulfson, 985 A. D. 
Landfall Of Leif Erikson On Cape Cod, 1000 A. D. 

Norse Canals. Dams. Walls. Pavements. 
Forts. Terraced Places Of Assemby Remain To-day. 
FORT. 
At Base Of Tower And Region About 
Was Occupied By The Breton French in the 
ISrh. 16th and 17th Centuries. 
RIYER 
—The Charles- 
Discovered by 

Leif Ertkson. 1000 A. D. 
Explored by 

Thokyald, Leif 3 Brother, 1003 A. D. 
Colonized by 

Thokfinn Karlsefni, 1007 A. D. 
First Bishop 

Erik Gnupson, 1121 A. D. 

INDUSTRIES FOR 350 YEARS. 

Masur wood (Burrs). Fish. Furs. Agriculture. 

Latest Norse Ship Returned To Iceland in 1347 



90 THE LAST OF YINLAND. 

This may be considered a summary of Prof. 
Horsford's doctrines. The inscription certainly 
does not leave anything to be desired in the way 
of confidence; nor can it be denied that the erection 
of the monument carries with it a certain ''air of 
conscious possession of the field." But how does 
the learned professor reach such final conclusions? 
By a a S3^stem of reasoning along historic lines, 
aided by carthography, both ingenious and con- 
vincing. The following resume of some of the 
arguments offered ma^^ serve to elucidate the 
methods employed: 

1. * 'There was a region of country in America 
called Norumbega."— Proven by reports and 
charts from the hands of Charlevoix, Purchas, 
Champlain, Hakh^t, Thevet, Allefonsce, etc. 

2. "There was a city of Norumbega. Numer- 
ous maps of the sixteenth and the early part of 
the seventeenth centuries show it." Descriptions 
of the city are left by Allefonsce, Thevet, Ramusio, 
David Ingram, Haklyt, Champlain, etc. 

3. It was situated on a river in the forty-third 
A Resume of degree." -Authorities: All e- 

Prof. Hosford's fonsce, Thevet, Purchas, Ogilby, 
Arguments. Buno's Cluverius. 

4. "At the mouth of the river was an archi- 
pelago." — Authorities cited: The Yinland sagas, 
Cosa, Ruysch. Gomez, Lok, Champlain, etc. 

5. "At the entrance to the archipelago was a 
salient of the shape of the human arm, called 
AiAYASCON by the Iroquois, and Nantasket by 
Winthrop and the coast survey. The arm is de- 



THE LAST OF VINLAND. 9i 

scribed by The vet; figured by Chaplain, Lescar- 
bot/' etc. 

6. The latitude of this arm was determined by 
Thevet as 42 Deg. 18 Min. The Coast Survey 
gives it 42 Deg. 14 Min. 

7. "Above the archipelago the river flowed 
through a lake, landlocked, salt at flood-tide and 
fresh at ebb, figured between Carenas and Cape 
Breton on the maps of Ortelius (1570), Solis 
(1598), and Botero (1603). On these maps at 
the same point above the lake (and on Solis's map, 
with the cipher indicating a city), on the Rio 
Grande (the Charles), are the names respectively ^ 
Norumbega, Noruega, and Norvega, — all dialectic 
equivalents of Norway." 'This lake was the Hop 
of Thorfinn and the Boston Back Ba3^ of our da3^/ 

8. ''Thorfinn records in the sagas before the 
mouth of the river 'great islands,"' And many^ 
other writers mention them. 

9. "Roger Clapp passed through the Back Bay 
in 1630, to within less than a mile of the site of 
the city of Norumbega, and bartered for fish 
caught by Indians at the falls on the river above. '^ 

10. "Winthrop observed the fall (an abrupt 
break from still water to rapids). It was occa- 
sioned b^' a dam, — an artificial structure compos- 
ed of massive field-bowlders. It was there when 
he came. It had been built by a people who had 
come and gone. Besides the dam, there were 
docks, wharves, a fishway, and a great extent of 
stone wallon either side of the river below," etc. 

We are to understand, then, that the Watertowrt 
ruins were in existence when the Puritans came to 
Massachusetts Bay in 1628. Further, that they 



92 THE LAST OF YINLAND. 

are not to be traced to the Breton French, who 
dwelled thereabout for something like two cen- 
turies; and that such works were entirely beyond 
the conception of the native Algonquin tribes. So 
far Prof. Horsford. But have we any conclusive 
evidence that these dams, fishways, etc., were 
not built by the French? To be sure, the ''im- 
portant" city of Norumbega is mentioned by a 
host of writers; but the term "city" in a new con- 
tinent is often extremely misleading, being used 
generally in its relative meaning. Taken all in all, 
it does not appear to me that the Norumbega 
hypothesis has yet reached anything like a verifi- 
cation; though it must be owned, the arguments 
produced in its defense certainly do appear in the 
light of "straws" blown in a direction to make 
the existence of Norumbega as a Norse colony a 
possibility. 

But to return to the fisherman's tale: The king 
of Estotiland, for some reason untold, sent an ex- 
pedition comprising twelve ships to a country ly- 
ing far to the south, Drogio by name. Our Fseroe- 
landers were selected to pilot the expedition since 
they, understanding the use ofthe magnetic needle, 
were held in high esteem as navigators. After 
having escaped ruin in a severe hurricane, the 
weather-tossed sailors were grateful at length to 
set foot on the shores of Drogio, where, alasl near- 
ly all of them were devoured by the natives, who 
^were cannibals. A few, indeed, were spared be- 



THE LAST OF YINLAND. 93^ 

cause they knew how to catch fish in nets. One 
of these fishermen, through a pecuHar train of cir- 
cumstances, drifted from tribe to tribe into the 
interior of the country, where he saw much and 
heard more. 

This wanderer lived to see his native country 
after an absence of many years, and there he told 
his adventures, as before stated, to Antonio Zena 
in whose letters he is made to say "that it is a 
ver}^ great country, and, as it were, a new world; 
the people are verv rude and uncultivated, for they 
all go naked, and suffer cruelh^ from the cold, nor 
have they the sense to clothe themselves with the 
skins of the animals which they take in hunting (a 
gross exaggeration). They have no kind of metaL 

The Fisherman's ^^^7 li^^^ by hunting, and carry 
Desciiption of lances of wood, sharpened at 
rogio. ^^^ point. The\^ have bows^ 

the strings of which are made of beasts' skins. 
They are verv^ fierce, and have deadly fights among 
each other, and eat one another's flesh. They have 
chieftains and certain laws among themselves, 
but differing in the different tribes. The farther 
you go southwest\vards, however, the more re- 
finement you meet with, because the climate is 
more temperate, and accordingh^ there they have 
cities and temples dedicated to their idols, in which 
the}^ sacrifice men and afterwards eat them. In 



94 THE LAST OF YINLAND. 

those parts thev have some knowledge of gold 
^nd silver."* 

Tired at length of this roving life, our adventur- 
er, more venturesome perhaps than his companions, 
determined to flee and make his way once more to 
the coast. In this he succeeded after much toil 
and hardship. *'Here, by good luck, he heard from 
the natives that some boats had arrived off the 
coast; and full of hope of being able to carry out 
his intentions, he went down to the seaside, and 
to his great delight found that they had come 
from Estotiland. He forthwith requested them to 
take him with them, which they did very willingly, 
,and as he knew the language of the country, 
which none of them could speak, they employed 
him as their interpreter."! Thus runs the story of 
the Norse fisherman in Drogio— a story which, in 
spite of its startling incidents, bears many "thumb- 
marks" oftruth.1: 



*Richard Henry Major, The Voyages of the Venetian 
Brothers, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno, to the North- 
ern Seas in the XIVth Century, pp 20-21. 

tMajor, Id. p. 22. 

JSays riske: "We are reminded that when the younger 
l^icolo published this narrative, in 1658, some dim knowledge 
of the North American tribes was beginning to make its 
way into the minds of the people of Europe. The work of 
Soto and Cartier, to say nothing of the other explorers, had 
already been done. May we suppose that Nicolo had thus 
obtained some idea of North America, and wove it into his 
reproduction of his ancestors' letters, for the sake of com- 
pleteness and point, in somewhat the same uncritical mood 
as that in which the most worthy ancient historians did not 



THE LAST OF VINLAND. 95 

Now to gather up our fragments: Some Norse 
fishermen from the Faeroes came to Estotiland 
about the year 1730, where they found a cultured 
people living in well-built cities. This country is 
marked by many cartographers to the north of 
the Gulf of St. Lawrence; but it may in reality 
have coincided w4th the province of Norumbega, 
extending, according to some maps, as far south 
as Rhode Island. And this latter country (Nor- 
umbega) may have been the seat of an extended 
Norse civilization. The same fishermen later made 
their way to a large country, Drogio, still farther 
south, the home of a cannibal people w^hich could 
hardly have been other than some Algonquin or 
Maskoki Indian tribes, inhabiting the Atlantic 
coast from, say, the Chesapeake Bay, southward. 
These narratives, if verified, would establish two 
things: First, that the Norsemen had succeeded 
in founding lasting colonies on the American main- 
land; second, that Norse fishermen had touched 
upon the same shores nearly four centuries after 
Leif Eriksson's day, and about a century prior to 



scruple to invent speeches to put into the mouths of their 
heroes? Now if the younger Nicolo had been in the mood 
of adorning his ancestor's narrative by inserting a few 
picturesque incidents out of his own hearsay knowledge of 
North America it does not seem likely that he would have 
known enough to hit so deftly upon one of the peculiarities 
of the barbaric mind. Here again, we seem to have come 
upon one of those incidents, inherently probable, but too 
strange to have been invented, that tend to confirm the 
story."— The Discovery of America, vol. I, pp. 248-252. 



96 THE LAST OF YINLAND. 

the re-discoverj by Columbus. As to the Norum. 
bega rviins, we may yet live to 
Estotiiand, ^^^ them identified as of Norse 
Norumbega origin — nor could anything give 
rogio. ^^^ lovers of the discovery ques- 
tion more genuine pleasure than such a solution. 
Finally, there can hardly be a doubt as to the 
identification of Drogio with some portion of the 
Atlantic sea-board. 

But, with all the above, it becomes necessary at 
this point to recollect that our story, as far as 
Vinland is concerned, since we left the major nar- 
ratives which ended with Frej^dis' bloody deed in 
1611, has not been entirely free from the elements 
of hypothesis, some parts of which have not yet 
been satisfactorily substantiated. I have before 
warned against overzealous theorizing, so it 
would behoove me but poorly now to commit the 
same blunder. This portion of the narrative, 
therefore, inasmuch as it occasionally beguiles us 
to dangerous ground, may be left out of the final 
consideration entirely — the case is proven with- 
out it. 



A General Summary of the Question. 



"The general reader has been convinced of the fact, which 
is no longer disputed, that the Northmen were the first 
modern discoverers of this continent,"— Aaron Goodrich. 

The settlement of Greenland in 986 has been 
classed as one of the strange feats of history. So 
strange, indeed, that many writers would explain 
its possibility in a change of climate! And, likely 
enough, would ridicule the possibility of such a 
settlement altogether, were it not that the coloni- 
zation of Danish America is as much an historic 
truth as the settlement of Jamestown in 1607. 
One people, however, never did see anything strange 
about the achievement, and that — the Norsemen 
themselves. 

It was very matter of fact to them, inured as 
they were, from the cradle up, to the rigors of a 
northern climate. An ice-bound fjord, a danger- 
ous coast, a long, dark polar night might have its 
terrors for southern mariners, but not so, the 
Norsemen. But is it so Yerj strange that a peo- 
ple, hardy enough to found a flourishing state on 
such a barren sub-pclar island as Iceland, should 
be able to find footing on the but little less hos- 
pitable Greenland Qords? To me [this appears the 
most natural thing in the world. For once es- 



98 A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 

tablished in Iceland, it would onl^- be a matter of 
time before tlie3' passed their van-guard on to 
Greenland— be it remembered that Iceland lies 
hundreds of miles nearer the latter country than 
Norwa3^ And then, again, when we learn how 
stout Norse dragons* plowed their wray through 
the ice of Baffin's Bay, reaching the amazingly 
high latitude of 75 Deg., does it seem at all strange 
that other ships should have reached the continent 
beyond the comparative^ narrow Davis Strait? 
And that, once found, the new landfall, proving 
pleasant and profitable, should become an object 
for exploration and colonization? The contrary, 
rather, would have been strange. 

The Icelandic sagas, and particularly Erik the 
Red's Saga and Thorfinn's Saga, histories of 



*The ships used by northern sea-rovers were the most sea- 
worthy of mediaeval times. Types of their build may yet 
in our day be seen along the northwest coast of Norway. 
One of these dragons, unearthed at Gogstad, near Sande- 
f jord, measuring "seventy-seven feet eleven inches at the 
greatest length, and sixteen feet eleven inches at the great- 
est width, and from the top of the keel to the gunwale 
amidships she was five feet nine inches deep. She had 
twenty ribs, and would draw less than four feet of water." 
They were built deep of keel, with strong, gracefully curved 
bow and stern rising high out of the water and usually end- 
ing in a dragon's head or similar ornament. The ships 
were supplied with one tall mast rigged with booms for one 
square sail; enormous oars, often twenty or more feet long, 
were used in case of unfavorable winds. Doubting 
Thomases have in the past given vent to the belief that 
such open, deckless ships as here described, would hardly 
have dared venture far from land, to say nothing about 
crossing the Atlantic. But this talk came to a stop forever 



A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE OUESTIOX. 99 

thoroiighi3^ established reliability, describe a num- 
ber of YO_vages to Vinland on the American coast, 

between the years 1000 and 
What Has Been t^-h -r^r ^ ,, 

Established be- 1^)11. We can hardlj^ err m 

yond a Shadow saying that the country de- 
^^ ' scribed as Vinland lay on the 
New England coast, in all probability between 
Cape Ann and Point Judith. Now, as Fiske sug- 
gests, the saga of Erik the Red ''begins with the 
colonization of Greenland and goes on with the 
\'isits to Vinland. It is unquestionably sound 
history for the first part; wh^^ should it be any- 
thing else for the second part? What shall be said 
of a style of criticism which, dealing with one and 
the same document, arbitrarih^ cuts it in two in 
the middle and calls the first half history and the 
last half legend?"* We will agree with Fiske, 
* 'quite contrary to common sense." 

The celebrated Danish antiquarian Rafn,t as 
secretary of the Society for Northern Antiquities, 

in 1893, when Captain Magnus Andersen and a hardy crew 
of modern Norse sailors crossed the Atlantic ocean in just 
such a ship modelled after the one found at Gogstad. After 
being exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition at 
Chicago, the "Viking" was presented to the Field Museum, 
where it may now be seen. 

*Fiske's Discovery, Vol. I. p. 213. 

tKarl Christian Rafn (1796-1864). Fall title of his work: 
Antiquitates American.^, seu Scriptore^ Septentri- 
ONALE-5 Rerum Ante-Columbianarum IN AMERICA (Cop- 
enhagen, 1873). Since Rafn's time, the best critical discus- 
sion we have on the subject is from the pen of Prof. Gustav 
Siorm of the University of Christiana, entitled: "Studier 

8* 



100 A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 

edited, in 1837, a work often cited in these pages, 
the valuable Antiouit.i.tes Americaxae. This 
marks the beginning of a period of historic re- 
search, continued with intermittent interest down 
to our day. Rafn, unfortunately, overreached 
himself in his zealous endeavors to point out the 
exact locality of Vinland, and so became the target 
for much criticism, mosth" undeserved. First to 
enter the field, his mistakes and fault^^ conclusions 
wete excusable enough; nor should we let this 
blind us to the real monumental worth of his 
work. That he should have mistaken the picto- 
graphs on Dighton Rock for Norse runes is not so 
surprising when we consider their poor state of 
preservation and the striking likeness of at least 
some of them to runes and Roman numerals. 
It must be acknowledged, fo be sure, that too 



OVER Vinlandsreiserne." This erudite paper may be 
found in Aarboger for Xordisk Oldkyndighed og 
HiSTORiE, Copenhagen, 1887, pp. 293-372. 

Other writers on the subject, in this country, have fallen 
into the deplorable habit of railing against Columbus and 
accusing him of all manner of wicked deeds. And such 
accusations they have attempted to prove by building hy- 
potheses, incapable of verification. The estimable Prof. 
Rasmus B. Andersen published, in 1874, his America not 
Discovered by Columrus, a work which created much 
stir when it first appeared. Could its bitter anti-Columbus 
spirit have been eliminated, the book would have accom- 
plished a deal more good than it has in its present form. 
Marie A. Brown (Shipley), following the same line of argu- 
ment, published, in 1888, her Icelandic Discoverers of 
Amehica. This volume contains much valuable material; 
but its galling accusations cannot fail to force protestations 
from the lips of the fairminded reader. 



A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 101 

much eager credulity was displayed in this in- 
stance, as also in the attempt to prove the Norse 
origin of Gov. Arnold's windmill at Newport. En- 
tirely too much good ink has been wasted in at- 
tempting to trace the shorelines followed by Leif 

and Thorfinn. And with what 

What Overzealoua ^ , -j rri. ±. i . 

Antiquarians Have result? That some zealots 

Accomplished have hit upon Mount Hope 

for the Cause. t^ 4.1. i i. 4.1, 

Bay as the place where the 

booths were erected, while others are just 
as positive that Massachusetts Bay was the place. 
Numerous attempts have been made to sho w that 
theYinland settlements *^must" have existed for 
centuries after Freydis' bloody farewell. And this 
in spite of the sagas' absolute silence on the sub- 
ject! Lastly, there are the numerous attempts to 
show that Columbus "must" have received knowl- 
edge of America from Adam von Bremen's history 
and from documents contained in Icelandic mon- 
asteries, etc. 

Such useless guesswork and unreasonable accu- 
sations have had the effect of placing the question 
in anything but an enviable light. As could be 
expected, the public have long viewed the stor3' of 
Vinland much as they would a mythological 
tale — a story with a probable nucleus spun 
about with a web of the impossible. Some 
scholars, indeed, have discredited the sagas, in 
part or as a whole, on the same grounds. This 
sceptic view has, of course, also kept many from 



102 A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 

giving them the careful stud3^ required to bring out 
the whole truth. The onty persons who seem to 
have taken any special interest in the narratives^ 
are such historians who, for reasons of their own, 
find it necessary to laugh Lief Eriksson to scorn; 
and these have handled the sagas much the same 
as an atheist would attack the Holy Bible— with 
about as much logical reasoning and thorough- 
going study. 

To pause for a moment with the charges against 
Columbus: This navigator made a voyage to 
Arctic waters in 1477, and seems to have touched 
at Iceland. Finn Magnussen*, originally, and 
latter Rasmus Andersenf and some other writers^ 
hold that he must have learned something about 
the existence and whereabouts of Vinland while 
on the island, and that this knowledge spurred 
him on to make the voyage to India by sailing 
westward. Further, that he must have read 



*Finii Magnussen, Nordisk Tidsskrift for Oldkyn- 
DiGHED, Copenhagen, 1833. 

tProf. Andersen, in the course of his arraignment of 
Columbus, says that ''there were undoubtedly people still 
living whose grandfathers had crossed the Atlantic, and it 
would be altogether unreasonable to suppose that he 
(Columbus), who was constantly studying and talking about 
geography and navigation, possibly could visit Iceland and 
not hear anything of the land in the West." And this in 
the face of the fact that the Vinland voyages were not alone 
not popular talk in those days, but that they had e^en faded 
from the memory of the whole people save a few of the 
saga students. The discovery of America in 1492 was neces- 
sary to again bring the old skins back into the light of day 



A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 103 

Adam von Bremen's De situ Dani.«, and that this 
was the real cause of the Iceland voyage. For 
could he not expect there to find fuller details of 
the land where vines and grapes were abundant! 
Finally, that during the long JDattle against dis- 
appointment, before success came, he was "suffici 
ently prudent" to breathe never a word to anyone 
about the guiltj^ secret in his heart. That is to 
say, he guardedly withheld the one argument 
which would have given him the immediate sup- 
port of kings and kingdoms. Surely, he would 
have found but little trouble in striking the bar- 
gain at either the Portuguese or the Spanish 
Court, could he have "guaranteed beforehand'^ 
that "on the west of the great sea of Spain" there 
lay a great country long centuries before visited 
by bold northern navigators, and which, without 
a doubt, formed some part, or lay close to, the 
The Ridiculous ^pice Islands! Then a confession 
Attacks upon of this kind (that he had receiv- 
ed hints of the existence of land 
to the westward) could not have diminished his 
fame in any material degree. Prof. Storm* is of 
the opinion that Columbus never read the ap- 
pendix to Adam von Bremen's history, and that 
even in case he had read the book "it would not 
have been able to show him the wav to the West 



*Gustav Storm, Aakboger fok Nokdisk Oldkyndig- 
HED, 1887, ii. 2, p. 301. 



1«04 A GENERAiv SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 

(the Indies), but perhaps to the North Pole."* It 
is sure that the appendix was first printed in the 
Lindenborg edition in 1595, and that during the 
sixteenth century the manuscript copies of the 
book was Hmited to something like half a dozen, 
none of which seems to have been found south of 
Vienna. While the limited circulation of Adam's 
book does not in itself preclude Columbus' know- 
ledge of its contents, the fact certainly does reduce 
the chances of such a possibility to the minimum. 
It is questionable w^hether even the most pains- 
taking examination of the saga literature could 
have given Columbus anything like a hint in the 
right direction. t 

Sure it is, that in all his behavior, neither by 
w^ord nor by action, did he ever betray the least 
knowledge of Vinland. And for this very reason 



*Precious little encouragement, it seem to me, could Co- 
lumbus have received from Adam's history in case he had 
read it. Certainly not enough to warrant undertaking a 
voyage to Iceland. Why, the author himself was laboring 
i.nder the gravest misconception as to Vinland's where- 
abouts'. It is therefore difficult to conceive how his 
description of a country (or island) lying on the border 
lines to the realm of everlasting ice and snow and 
darkness could have given Columbus, seeking tropical lands 
where polar nights are unknown, any hint or clew whatever. 

This is what Adam has to say about the regions immedi- 
ately beyond Vinland: "After this island (meaning Vin- 
land) nothing inhabitable is to be encountered in that ocean, 
all beiug covered with unendurable ice and boundless 
darkness." 

tFiske says: "To suppose that Columbus, even had he 
got hold of the Saga of Eric the Ked and conned it from be- 



A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 105 

(sic!) is he branded as the slyest and wiliest among 

rru T> 1 rr ^i, thieves.* But to be done. The 
The Real Truth. . in-, 

truth m a nutshell is, that 

neither Columbus nor anyone else in those days 

dreamed of Vinland as anything more than an 

outl^dng country, or island, of Europe. It is only 

as we come down to the seventeenth century that 

the truth dawns upon Northern scholars. Then 

(1606) Amgrim Jonsson first connected Vinland 

wdth the new continent, by speaking of it as *'an 

island of America." What can be more significant 

than this century -long silence of the Scandinavian 



ginning to end, with a learned interpreter at his elbow, 
could have gained from it a knowledge of the width of the 
Atlantic Ocean, is simply preposterous. It would be im- 
possible to extract any such knowledge from that document 
to-day without the aid of our modern maps. The most 
diligent critical study of all the Icelandic sources of in- 
formation, with all the resources of modern scholarship, 
enables us with some confidence to place Vinland some- 
where between Cape Breton and Point Judith, that is to 
say, somewhere between two points distant from each 
other more than four degrees in latitude and more than 
eleven degrees in longitude! When we have got thus far, 
knowing as we do that the coast in question belongs to the 
same continental system as the West Indies, we can look at 
our map and pick up our pair of compasses and measure 
the width of the ocean at the twenty-eis:hth parallel. But 
it is not the Mediaeval document, but our modern map that 
guides us to the knowledo^e."— Discovery, Vol. I, pp. 388 
and 389. 

*"The fault we find with Columbus is, that he was not 
honest and frank enough to tell where and how he had 
obtained his previous information about the lands which 
he pretended to discover."— Rasmus B. Anderson, America 

NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS, p. 90. 



106 A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 

North! In case Iceland had furnished the neces- 
sary information and pointed out the path for 
Columbus in 1477, surely she would not have been 
so slow to proclaim to the world after 1492, that 
the Genoese navigator was trespassing on her 
right-of-wa3^! 

As a Scandinavian and a Norwegian I feel it my 
duty to put the facts just as they are. Not that 
this will detract in the least from the true signifi- 
cance of the Norse discovery. It is neither for me 
to add to nor to detract from Christopher Colum- 
bus' achievements. Let them that will, set up an 
idol and worship him; such can never diminish 
our hero's fame. 

Now that our hands are washed of the Columbus 
accusations, let us return again for a few moments 
to the main question. The arguments used in the 
foregoing pages have been sufficiently complete, I 
believe, to convince the fair-minded student, that 
the Norsemen discovered America in the year 1000. 
And that they made several attempts at coloni- 
zation between that year and 1010. This much 
is as firmly established as any event in history. 
But still, there are those w^ho say that this does 
not constitute a real discovery. Let us see. 
Greenland was settled in 986. In speaking of this 
event Fiske says: "For four hundred A^ears the for- 
tunes of the Greenland colony formed a part, al- 
beit a ver\'' humble part, of European histor3^ 
Geographic all3^ speaking, Greenland is reckoned as 



A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. lOT 

part of America, of the western hemisphere, and 
not of the eastern. The Northmen who settled in: 
Greenland had, therefore, in this sense found their 
way to America."* Very well, in the ^'geo- 
graphical sense,^^ then. ''But," he continues^ 
"the story does not end here. Into the world of 
the red men the voyagers from Iceland did assured^ 
ly come, as indeed, after once getting a foothold 
upon Greenland, they could hardly fail to do."t 
Shall this be called a disco verj^ in the legitimate 
serjse," then? Fiske cannot see it in that light- 
To him, and many others with him, it does not 
constitute a discovery ''in any legitimate sense 
of the phrase.'^ And the explanation of 
'legitimate sense' ^ seems to lie in the word re- 
sult. Surely no Scandinavian enthusiast has 3^et 
been so bold as to claim that 
Reluhfthe No?se ^^^ Norse discoverv^ in results. 
Discovery Was was as important as the discov- 
Ever3^ Bit as Much x^ r^ ^ i, i -d 4. i^ ^ 

a True Discovery ery by Columbus! But what 

as Was that of we do claim is, that, irrespec- 
Columbus. ^.^^ ^^ results, the Norse dis> 

CO very was every bit as much a true discovery as^ 
that of Columbus. The latter first touched uport 
the Bahama Islands. Does this constitute a dis- 
covery of America? As much so, though no more 
so, than the discoverv of Greenland 506 vear& 



*Fiske's Discovery, Vol. I, pp. 159 and 162. 
tld. p. 162. 



108 A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 

earlier. How would it do to call it also a discov- 
ery in the "^eo^ra/^Aica/ se/2se?" Fiske would, 
likely enough, in this instance, call it a discovery 
hoth geographically and historically. But we 
must bear in mind our Umitati on— '^irres/^ec^iVe 
of results.'' Later, Columbus beheld the main- 
land at the mouth of the Orinoco River, in Central 
America and in Yucatan. How does this answer 
to the requirements of a discovery in the ^^true 
sense?" Well enough, it seems to me; but surely 
no better than does the case of Vinland, 400 years 
earlier! But the Norsemen did not realize that 
they had discovered a new continent. Neither did 
Columbus; he died ignorant of his great achieve- 
ment. Thus far, all must agree that the case of 
Columbus is only a parallel to that of Leif Eriks- 
son. And here too, as far as the two discoverers 
are concerned, the story ends. For at this point 
they both pass from the stage of activity. Now, 
because those who came after Columbus used his 
discovery to better advantage than did the sea- 
rovers who followed in Leif Eriksson's wake, 
should this constitute a rationable grounds for 
deifying the former? While the latter, who in point 
of character far outshone his rival, is permitted 
to fall into obscurity! Such treatment rankles the 
heart of ever3^ true Norseman. Nor without cause, 
for our demand for fair plaj^ is indeed reasonable. 
The w^hole dispute (and w^hy dispute!) hinges on 
±he question of priority. No sane person ever did 



A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 109 

dispute the greater direct influence of the re-dis- 
covery hj Columbus. But when it comes to 
priority, to being the first European to find Amer- 
ca, etc., we certainly do call a halt. Here we can 
see but one man in the field, and that is Leif Eriks- 
Leif Eriksson ^on. All we ask is, that Ameri- 
Hoids the Priority can writers and students return 
Claim to the Dis- . .1 , .1 • • , ,. ,-, ^ 

coverv '^^ ^"^ truth m mterpetmg that 

of Amer o «. remarkable ebb and flow of the 
human race which is called history. That they 
rise from their blind worship at the shrine of their 
one popular hero long enough to do obeisance to 
another, just as deserving though so long neg- 
lected. It has been stated repeatedly that nothing 
whatever of consequence resulted from the Norse 
discover3\ Here we have it — ever this same pure- 
13^ commercial side — held up to our gaze. Is it ab- 
solutely impossible, then, for the American people 
to understand and appreciate any of a nation's 
loftier possibilities! Can they not understand^ 
that no mere vaingloriousness, but rather an hon- 
est endeavor to claim ties ot kinship where they 
do by nature exist, is the cause of the Scandina- 
vian peoples' demand? When amends for past 
neglect shall have been made, we all will come to see 
The True Li^ht in consequences enough resultant 
Which to View of the discovery. But some 
I>ilco\^e?y. work is necessary— a painstak- 
ing study of our own American 
family tree. It will therein be demonstrated how 



110 A GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE QUESTION. 

very essential a part in developing the re-disco v- 
-ered country belongs to the Norsemen. It was 
the great swarms of Scandinavians who settled in 
the different parts of Great Britian and Ireland, 
^engrafting on the population a love for the sea 
and a skill in seamanship before unknown, to- 
gether v^dth a daring spirit of enterprise,' that in 
the fullness of time enabled England *to solve the 
problem of closely knitting together lands separat- 
ed from each other by the Atlantic in all its 
Ijreadth and vastness.' It was the love for relig- 
ious and civil freedom, engrafted by them on the 
population of East Anglia and Northunderland, 
i:hat determined the great Puritan exodus to 
America; and so in course of time bore fruit on 
this continent in the shape of the noblest democ- 
racy of all history! This rightly understood, the 
true significance of the Norse discovery will not be 
slow to dawn upon us. 



The Discovery Viewed in Its Relations 
To The Great World Migrations. 



"The overflow of the population of Europe into the dif- 
ferent regions of the New World is simply a continuance 
of the outpourings of the primitive Aryan household into 
the surrounding countries/'~P. Y. N. Myers. 

The Northmen comprise one of the great divi- 
sions of the Teutonic branch of the Aryan family, 
w^hose original home was, it is conjectured, an- 
cient Bactria in Central Asia. Thousands of 
years ago an extreme pressure . of population, 
coupled perhaps with other economic changes, 
caused the Aryan Folk to leave their ancient 
abodes, and seek more hospitable climes. Of 
these, the clans of the socalled Hindu-Persian 
branch, after advancing southw^ard for some time, 
for reasons unknown to us, split up into two 
different bands, the one pouring down over the 
table-land of Iran, where they laid the foundations 
of the future Medo-Persian nation; the other, 
meanwhile, scaling the lofty Hindu Cush, swept 
down into the rich valleys of the Indus and 
Ganges, there becoming the pregenitors of the 
Hindus. 



112 THE GREAT WORLD MIGRATIONS. 

At the same time, a migration towards the 
The Aryan west, of greatest consequence to 
Migration, history, had been initiated by the 
other Aryan clans. The movement diverged, it 
would seem, at the Black Sea, one current follow- 
ing its southern shore and pouring into Europe 
by way of the Hellespont, thence down through 
the Balkan and Italian peninsulas, laying the 
foundation to the future glory of Greece and Rome; 
the other current, after passing northward around 
the Black Sea, spread, wave upon wave, over Cen- 
tral Europe. First came the Celts, or Kelts, who 
were shortly crowded into the westernmost parts 
of the continent by a second wave of their broth- 
ers, called Teutons. The modern representatives 
of the Celts are the Bretons of Bretagne, the 
Welsh, the Irish and the Highland Scotch. The 
Teutons, after having urged the weaker Celts as 
far as they could to the west, settled Central and 
Northern Europe, where they became known as 
West Germans, Norse and Goths. Of these, the 
Goths, who settled along the shores of the Baltic 
— according to some authorities, peopling all of 
the southern portion of Sweden — at an early date 
swept southward, and under the distinct names 
of Ostro- Goths, Visi-Goths, Lombards, Vandals, 
etc., overturned the crumbling civilization of the 
West Roman Empire. The West Germans and the 
Nor«e were satisfied to remain where they first 
set up their abode. On the plains and rivers of 



THE GREAT WORLD MIGRATIONS. 113 

Low Europe they became Germans, Dutch and 
Flemmings; farther to the north, Danes, Swedes 
and Norwegians; while in Great Britain they call- 
ed themselves English. 

The Aryan migration, although it commenced 
thousands of j^ears ago while the history of man 
was young, has not yet come to an end. There is 
noticeable, even in our day, a shifting and drifting 

The Aryan Mi- ^^ nationahties in m.any direc- 
g-ration not tions, though the main flow is a 
>e n e , steady westward one. And the 
overflow is being dispersed over the whole earth, 
peopling America and Australia, setting up there 
and elsewhere, a new and powerful dominion over 
the aborigines. Wherever they go the Ar^^ans 
carry with them their enlightenment— their arts 
and sciences. 

European history, since the close of the Middle 
Ages, has been, in reality, one continuous struggle 
between the Romance nations which sprang up 
on the ruins of the Roman Empire, and the two 
divisions of the Teutons— the West Germans and 
the Norse. For ages past have they divided 
Europe into two diametrically opposite camps. 
And the crest of the mountain axis of Central Eu- 
rope may be said, in a general way, to be the line 
of demarkation between them. Two distinct 
civilizations have been produced. The South, 
priest-ridden and superstitious, is not able to keep 
pace with the free, protestant North. The Teu- 

8 



114 THE GREAT WORLD MIGRATIONS. 

tons are winning out. The seat of empire, first 
established in Greece and on the Tiber, has long 
been on the Rhine and Thames, and is even now 
getting read^^ for a kap across the broad Atlantic. 
In the New World the struggle has been taken up, 

The Teutonic 2>s. ^^^ dividing Hne, roughly speak- 
the Romance ing, Iving between the United 
Nations. ^^^^^^ ^^^ Mexico. Should this 

fest of comparative qualities continue indefinitely 
without Slav interference, the weakening Romance 
nations would speedily yield the crown of victory 
to the more progressive Teutons. But such w^ould 
hardly be compatible with existing political al- 
liances and balances, and may be left out of con- 
sideration. At any rate, as the situation now is, 
the Teutonic people, because of the real true per- 
sonalitj^ oiits members, has set the pace in win- 
ning the world to enlightenment. They came from 
a sterling stock, unrivalled by any other race di- 
vision; they have a capacity for civilization, and 
for civiHzing, as none other; and their unbounded 
love for free institutions and their chivalric spirit 
alone have made possible the growth, wnthin our 
time, of democracies which, unjike southern re- 
publics, are neither bureaucratic nor militar\' in 
their administration, but representative republi- 
can pure and simple. 

In this great Teutonic world movement the 
English-speaking nations easily take the first rank. 
We may add— in all world movements— for never 



THE GREAT WORLD MIGRATIONS. 115 

did nation in antiquity reach such attainments, 
nor so marvelously influence the history of all the 
world. Rome, mighty in decaj- though she is 
through the heritage left behind her, would lose 
her sublimitj- in contrast, should Old Albion, 
through some perverse decree of fate, at this mo- 
ment sink below the entombing Atlantic deep, 
carrying all her burden of civilization along with 
her. For her work cannot be outlived, cannot be 
outgrown. The nations that she fostered and 
endowed with free institutions now in their 
strength bespeak the mother's glory; the Hberal 
democratic commonwealths that are even now 
springing up out of her colonies, shall bear wit- 
ness, through C3xles to come, to the universality of 
her triumph. 

But whence all this strength, all these character- 
The Genesis of istics which made her the undis- 

the English-Speak- p^ted mistress of the sea, and 
ing Aations. \ 11.-1 r 1 

the establisher oi the greatest of 

maritime empires? The thinker, freed from the bias 
of a misshapen past, gives the answer: "From its 
natural fountain-head— /ro^ii the Glorious Old 
North. ^^ The English people is a product of cir- 
cumstances. Not the result of an age, but of 
many ages. Its Celtic progenitors at an early 
day received a slight infusion of Roman blood, 
and with it, all the enervating luxuries and vices 
consequent on Roman modes of life. Then there 
are the Teutons. The Jutes swarmed over from 

8* 



116 THE GREAT WORLD MIGRATIONS. 

the upper part of the Danish Peninsula, the Angles 
from Schles wig-Hols tein, and the Saxons from the 
German river-mouths. Their conquest of Celtic 
Britain was complete and no later invader has 
been able to disposses them; though later comers 
have furnished the elements that were required to 
make English life and character what it now is. 
The Viking Age began, and in conformity to a 
great, unchangeable law of nature, the Scandina- 
vian nations poured outward and worldward 
streams of their best blood. The3^ furnished, as 
we shall see, the ver3' elements just mentioned 
above. They, more than the Saxons,* may claim 
the progenitorship to the finished Englishman. 
When the Normans crossed the Channel in the 
eleventh centur3^, it was merely to add to the 
characteristics already implanted by their broth- 
ers, the Danes and the Norwegians. 

In the following pages, it shall be our endeavor 
to point out just what elements of the English 
national make-up are traceable to the Northm^en, 
and to suggest the influence these have had in 



*This term Saxon is often used indiscriminately for all 
the Teutonic invaders. Such a misnomer has effected that 
Englishmen from sheer force of habit term themselves 
Saxons or Anglo-Saxons. The truth is, the Saxon element 
in the English nation has always been over-estimated. 
Many of the nation's characteristics, by German scholars 
claimed as Anglo-Saxon, are in reality Scandinavian. 



THE GREAT WORLD MIGRATIONS. 117 

moulding the American Nation. Of all European 

The Northern sailors the Northmen were the 

Sailors Lead the boldest. As the great Teutonic 

Teutonic World • 4.- x- j ^ i 

Movement across migration continued westward 

the Atlantic. it was to be expected that its 
sailor-folk should lead the van; and this the North- 
men did. They pushed their beaks into the sea, 
and were soon at home in England, there convert- 
ing the land-loving Anglo-Saxons into a nation of 
sailors. While this reformation was taking place, 
other Northern bands, unable longer to delay, con- 
tinued westward and found America in j^ear 1000. 
This avant-guard was small and too feeble long 
to hold their find; but the main bod3^ in 
Great Britain at length gave the signal for a gen- 
eral advance. This took place in 1620. 

The Norse discovery of America is not to be con- 
sidered as an accidental happening; but as the 
first weak pulsation of the great Teutonic trans- 
oceanic movement, of which the coming of Eng- 
lish Vikings formxcd the second and stronger pul- 
sation. In such a light considered, its true signi- 
ficance will readily be apparent to all. 



Scandinavian Elements In Old 
England* 



"Amongst the many wonders of this world, there is none 
greater than the blindness of the writers of this and other 
countries to the transcendent influence of the blood and 
spirit of ancient Scandinavia on the English character." 

—The Howitts. 

'•It is back to the Northern Vikings we must look for the 
hardiest elements of progress in the United States." 

—Benjamin Lossing. 

A careful stud^^ of place names as they appear 
on any good map of Great Britian and Ireland 
would furnish one the necessary key to the dis- 
tricts most thickh^ settled by the Danes and Nor. 
wegians. It would lay bare the fact that a great 
many names, especially in the north of England, 
are Scandinavian in termi.nation, and, often, in 
entire form. In the south of England, where the 
bulk of the population was of Anglo-Saxon ex- 
traction, we meet with place names ending in 
-ham, -bur3% -borough, -ton, -ford, or forth, etc. 
But once we enter the Thames River districts a 
gradual change occurs. The above become mix- 
ed to a degree with names of Northern origin; and 
the nearer we approach the Wash, the more numer- 
ous these become. There are the names ending in 
—by (Scandinavian for town), -thorpe (Scan., 
thorp or torp, a cluster of homes, a hamlet). 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 119 

-thwaite (Scan., thveit or tved, a detached piece 
of land), and many others. What is more, not 

Danish and Nor- alone are the terminations Scan- 
wegian Place dinavian; but the compound 
words themselves, of which theJ 
form a part, are in most instances traceable to 
a northern origin and significance. With reference 
to geographical or natural peculiarities, take for 
example Haidenby (Scan., Hedeby — heath vil- 
lage), Mickleby (Scan., Magleby— large village), 
Askwith (Scan., Askved— Ashwood), Stonegarth 
(Scan., Steengaard — stone farm), Fieldgarth 
(Scan., Fjeldgaard — mountain farm), etc. Person- 
al names, too, appear very frequently in the make- 
up of such names. Here could be mentioned, 
Grimsdale, Thoresb3% Asserb)^, RoUesb}^, Haconby, 
Grimsthorpe, and a host of similar ones. Then 
there are the names of animals, names introduced 
with Christianity, and names taken from the 
trades of their first inhabitants; as, for instance: 
Kirkby (Scan., Kirkeby— churchtown), Derby 
(Scan., Dyreby— deer town), Copmanthorpe (Scan., 
Kjobmandstorp — merchants' hamlet), and the 
like. 

It is difficult in these few pages to give anything 
like a satisfactory idea of the surprising abund- 
ance of Danish-Norwegian place names, in any 
other way than by some systematically arranged 
table. The one here included, is the work of that 
erudite Danish scholar J. J. A. Worsaae, who has 





Northumberland 

in all 


n Kent, northeast of 

Watling Street 

n Essex 

Bedfordshire 

Buckinghamshire.... 

Suffolk 

Norfolk 

Huntingdonshire 

Northamptonshire... 

Warwickshire 

Leicestershire 

Rutland 

Lincolnshire 

Nottinghamshire .... 

Derbyshire 

Cheshire 

Yorkshire 

East Riding 

West Riding 

North Riding 

Lancashire 

Westmorland 

Cumberland , 

Diirharn 


B 

CD 
(t 

a 
5" 
5' 


1 1 : ^&^oi^^ o-.o.fe^5: Sto^h-^wM? to^ ^ 


^ 


H» <j - 3; 


^^^ '■ ^.^S^Sh^ES: Sfo^towM: 


cr 
o 


S 




co"*.ts:3--i-i ;:::::::: t3^_: :: : 


3* 

1 


^ 




• H-tc35oo3i ! ! : 1.^; ! 1 : : 




k 


s 








|-'^^co • ^' a>.' ^'- zc'- 




o 


1 

1 

si „ 


tci^ 


'. '• :;:.■; : : : : : i 

: : : : : : : : : : : : o 

^i*»i_i : i_ioc: : : : : H^- • • • : ' ^ 


5i ! : 


■ tc — to^ : i-i : : : ^: : : : : 


^: : co4^ 


3 
en 


,i i 


■ • • IN5- • • ::::!:::: 


: : : : 1 ^ 
: : : : CO- \ ^ 


tc cow-iStS^woIctc : : : oir-i-»: : : 


•■ ^ ; i ; • ! a 


OT 


• to^s-. 


4^: ^^ ::::::::: 




1 
1 


w 1 -Usswtc-J^ir 






i3 • 


■ «5^ 


h-M 




1 

r^ 

H| 


1 
1 

i 












1 

c 


^1 

^1 fiSiSsSii o.^S?goo23:^g^tSw*.tl=, 


1 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 121 

contributed so much to our knowledge of the 
monuments and memorials of the Danes and Nor- 
wegians in Great Britain and Ireland. Such a ta- 
ble will, as the author declares, *'with all its de- 
ficiencies, clearly and incontestably prove the cor- 
rectness of the historical accounts, w^hich state 
that the new population of Danes and Norwe- 
gians that emigrated into England during the Dan- 
ish expeditions, settled almost exclusively in the 
districts to the north and west of the Watllnga 
Street, and there chiefly to the west and north of 
the Wash."* The table shows that the Northmen 
have been the strongest near the coast and north 
An Explanation of the Humber in old Northum- 
of Dr. Worsaae's berland. Modern Yorkshire 
heads the list with a total of 405 
place names; Lincolnshire, lying directl)^ south of 
the Humber, stands second with a total of 292; 
while little Westmorland, the home of the Wash- 
ingtons, is third on the list with a total 158. 
*'The same table further shows that the names end- 
ing in by, thorpe, beck, n^es, and ey, appear chief- 
ly in the flat midland counties of England, where- 
as, farther to the north, in the more mountainous 
districts, these terminations mostl3' gi^'^ place to 
those in thwaite, and more particularly to those 
in dale, force, tarn, fell and haugh."t The latter 

*J. J. A. Worsaae. An Account of the Danes and 
Norwegians in England, Scotland and Ireland 
London, 1852. p. 72. 

tid. p. 72. 



122 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

are in most instances of Norwegian derivation 
and may be met with in the mountain regions of 
that country in great numbers to this day. Such 
are, Langdale, Westdale, (Norw., Dal, valley), 
Highforce, Lowforce (Norw., Fos, a waterfall), 
Micklefell, Crossfell (Norw. Fjaeld or old Norw., 
Fjall), Kirkhaugh, Greenhaugh (Norw., Haug, a 
hill), etc. 

At the very juncture of the two strong Norwe- 
gian shires of York and Lincoln wath Nottingham 
lie, on the river Idle, Austerfield (Scan., Osterijaeld 
— east of the mountain) and Scrooby (Scan., 
Skraaby— sloping town). These small towms 
mark the point from -which the Puritan Exodus to 

Austerfield and America was begun. This signifi- 
Scrooby Mark the cant historic fact becomes the 

Starting Point • . . • i i 

from Which the T^ort mterestmg wmen we learn as 

Puritan Exodus later shown, that these very 
Went forth. ^ x- ^ ^-u -xi. xt 

east counties, together with Nor- 
folk, Suffolk, and Essex, formed the core of the Com- 
monwealth, and won the victory for Parliament 
over Charles I. Here again, the ancient Norse 
love for freedom, political and religious, rescued 
England from the dangers of unconstitutional rule 
at the hands of a tyrant king. 

Warm ties of kinship and brotherly feeling have 
from the earliest time existed between the English 
and the Scandinavians. Englishmen are usually 
read}^ enough to boast of their descent from the 
Vikings bold Thej' displa}^ a degree of interest 



SCANDINAA^AN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 123 

and good will for the welfare of the North, such 
as is not to be met \vith in the case of an unrelated, 
alien people. And when in past history the Eng- 
lish government, forced by the flow of world 
politics, has interfered in Northern aifairs and 
levied unjust w^ar, none were louder in their con- 
demnation of the ministry than the English peo- 
ple. Blood-ties are sure to tell, be the3^ ever sa 
weak. It is the case in the present instance; the 
English are drawn by unseen bonds to the Scandi- 
navians much more than they are, for example, to 
the Germans and the French. And this is so not 
Existino- Ties of n^^rely on the ground of an ex- 
Good Will be- isting political antipathy to- 
tween English- j ^i i xx ^- -i x 

men and wards the latter nations; but 

Scandinavians, because the Northmen were sa 
fortunate as to infuse the British people with 
those characteristics which came to the surface 
more than those furnished from Germany or from 
France — which were strong enough to place a 
lasting stamp upon the nation — w^hich made Eng- 
land the carrier of democratic institutions — which 
made her people, along with the Scandinavians^ 
the sailors of the world. 

If we should make a careful study of the English 
people's physiognomy — make a journey for that 
purpose from south to north — we w^ould again 
meet with infallible marks of the corrobora- 
tion of historical accounts with the existing truth. 
In the south of England the people are decidedly 



124 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

unlike the flaxen-haired Scandinavians. They are 
rather black of hair, with dark eyes, and clear-cut 
features; such as would "remind one either of re- 
lationship with the Romans, whose chief seat in 
England was in the south, or rather, perhaps, of 
a strong compound between the ancient Britons 
and the Anglo-Saxons and Norman races, which 
afterwards immigrated into England." As we 
Featural Likeness- draw nearer the Wash a remark- 
'\ndtcf nd^,Sf" able Change occurs; the oval 
vians. face gives way to one more 

rounded, the nose is flattened somewhat, 
and the ej^es and hair are much lighter. In build, 
too, the people change; the Yorkshireman is hard- 
ly so tall, though more compactly set than his 
brother farther south. 

Mr. Worsaae, in speaking of the people he made 
such a careful study of, sa^'s: "In the midland, 
and especialh^ in the northern part of England, I 
saw every moment, and particularly in the rural 
districts, faces exactly resembling those at home. 
Had I met the same persons in Denmark or Nor- 
way, it would never have entered mj^ mind that 
they were foreigners. Now and then I also met 
with some whose sharper features reminded me of 
the inhabitants of South Jutland, or Sleswick, and 
particularly of Angeln; districts of Denmark which 
first sent colonists to England. I adduce it only 
as a striking fact, which will not escape the atten- 
tion of at least an^- observant Scandinavian trav- 



vSCANDINAYIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 125 

eiler, that the inhabitants of the north of England 
bear, on the whole, more than those of any other 
part of that country, an iinmistakeable personal 
resemblance of the Danes and Norwegians. "'^ 

But if the Northmen of a truth did leave such 
indelible marks upon the ph^^siognomy of so large 
a percent of the English people, could one not, 
with some reason, expect to find other traces of 
their influence as well? Most assuredly. While, 
in the main, as was generally the case wherever 
the3^ went, the Vikings were ready to give up their 
speech for the veracular of those they found in 
control of the soil, so powerful Vv^as their influence 
that many words were adopted by the English, 
and are to the present time found in our standard 
language. Skeats, in his Etymological Diction- 
ary, gives a list of over five hundred such words. 
These do not indeed compare in number with the 
Latin or French element; but, as Mr. Emerson 
declares, "from no other foreign source have we 
received so large a portion of simple, every-day 
words, as from the language of the Danish invad- 

o^i. T^ . I, XT ers.t Again, so near akin was 
The Danish-Nor- ', ^^ ' .^, _ 

wegianEle- their language with bng- 

ment in English. Hsh, that it is impossible now 

to determine, with anything like exactness, how 



*Worsaae, The Danes and Northmen, pp. 79—80. 

tOliver Farrar Emerson, The History of the English 
Language, p. 156, 



126 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

great the Danish-Norwegian element really was. 
But this will never be denied, that, where the origin 
of a w^ord was in doubt, English and German 
philologists have never tumbled over one another 
in their haste to accredit it to the Scandinavians. 
Indeed is the Danish-Norwegian element large 
in the class of words daily on our tongues. And 
so powerful, that 'not only nouns, adjectives and 
verbs were borrowed, but even pronominal forms, 
as they, their, and possibly them.' Among the 
commonest of Danish-Norwegian words, descended 
to us from the Old English period, are call, crave, 
fellovr, haven, husband, hustings, knife, lau^, 
take and wrong .* This much for the Standard 
English as we know it. 

Were we, on the other hand, to wander into the 
remote mountain regions in the north of England, 
say into the fastnesses of Yorkshire, Westmorland, 
Cumberland or Lancashire, we should find there 



*Says Emerson: "Many common Teutonic words in Eng- 
lish which have an sk combination of sounds are of Norse 
origin. Examples are scald, scare, skill, skin, sky, 
SCORE, BASK, BUSK. Sucli words if -bng-lish in origin, 
would now have sh instead of sk. On tne other hand, 
some French words and a few of low German origin also 
have the sound combination sk, as scape, scan, scarce, 
SKIPPER. Similarly Norse words have g, k, as in gun, kid, 
instead of y, ch, the corresponding English sounds. Ex- 
amples are gift, get, guest, drag, egg, flag, hug, leg, 
LOG, and keg, kid, kilt, kirtle. Of Norse origin also are 
many words with ai, ei, as bait, hail, "greet," said, 
raise, swain, they, their, wail."— a Brief History of 
THE English Language, p. 98. 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 127 

still a vernacular full of terms almost un- 
inteligible to the modern Englishman, though not 
at all strange-sounding to Scandinavians.* Our 
space is too brief in this paper to discuss at great- 
er length this interesting subject. Below is ap- 
pended, hov^-ever, a list of words taken from the 
provincial English, which will clearh^ enough il- 
lustrate the remarkable influence of Norse upon 
the popular dialect. 



*Dr. Worsaae, who spent some time among these quaint 
mountain folk, gives some exceedingly interesting 
illustrations of this vernacular. He says: "On enter- 
ing the house there one will And the housewife sitting with 
her ROCK (Dan., Rok; £ng., distaff) and spoele (Dan., 
Spole; Eng., spool, a small wheel in the spindle); or else 
she has set both her rock and her garnwindle (Dan., 
Garnvinde; Eng., reel, or yarn winder) aside whilst stand- 
ing by her back-board (Dan., Bagebord; Eng., baking 
board) she is about to knead dough (Dan., Deig), in order 
to make the oaten bread commonly used in these parts, at 
times also barleybread; for CLAP-BREAD(Dan., Klappebrod, 
or thin cakes beaten out with the hand) she lays the dough 
on the clap-board (Dan., Klappebord). One will also 
find the board claith spread (Dan., Bord-kl^de, Eng., 
table cloth); the people of the house then sit on the bank 
or bink; (Dan., B^NK; Eng., bench), and eat aandorn 
(English afternoon's repast, or, as called in Jutland and 
Funen, Onden. dinner). The chimney, lower, stands in 
the room; which name may be connected with the Scandi- 
navian Lyre] Icelandic Ljori; viz., the smokehole in the 
roof of thatch (thack), out of which in olden times, before 
the houses had regular chimneys and lofts" (Dan., Loft; 
Eng., roof and upper room), the smoke (reek reik Dan., 
RoG,) left the dark (mirk or mork, Dan., mork) room. 
Within is the bower or bur (Eng., bed chamber), in Danish, 
Buur; as for instance in the old Danish w^ord Jomfrubuur 
(the maiden's chamber),and in the modern word Fadebuur 
(the pantry.)"— The Danes and Norsemen, pp. 81-82. 



A Short List of Words Taken from the Provincial 
English, with Danish Equivalents. 

(Extracted from Worsaae, Danes and Northmen.) 



ENGLISH. 



PROVINCIAL ENGLISH. 



DANISH. 



Ar 

Edderkop 

banke " 

Barn 

bede 

bie 

blande 

klamres, fast- 

kiamre 
klavre 
selte 

Eestepenge 
Ira 

Eremmede Eolk 
Gammen 

gar [Norw.] Gjerde 
grede, Graad 
Haandklsede 
Htekke [til Ho] 
Kjernemelk 
kilte [op] 
nappe 
Potteskaar 
Qu?ern 
ristet 
Sserk 
skrige 
Smuthul 
Tang 
torn 

uredt, urede 
Vadmel 
Vaerk 
Ysenge 



*A few of these words are also found in the Scotch, 



scar 


arr 


spider 


attercop 


to beat 


bank 


child 


bairn,* beam 


to pray 


bede 


to stay 


bide 


to mix 


blend 


to quarrel, grasp 


clammer 


to climb 


claver 


to knead 


elt 


earnest-money 


festing-penny 


from 


fra 


strangers 


I'rem folks 


merriment 


gammon 


hedge 


gar 


to weep, tears 


;jreit, greets 


towel 


land clout 


hayrack 


heck 


buttermilk 


kern-milk 


to tuck up 


kilt 


to catch 


nab 


30t-sherd 


pot-scar 


land-mill 


quern 


toasted 


reasty 


shirt 


serk 


to cry, shriek 


skrike 


hiding-place 


smooth-hole 


sea-weed 


tang 


empty 


toom 


disorderly, filthy 


unrid 


homespun woolen 


wadmal, woadmel 


ache, pain 


wark 


a field. 


wong, vaecge 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 129 

According to Worsaae, it was not at all uncom- 
mon formerly at least, to find many old Norse 
names, such as Thorkil, Erik, Harald, Else and 
many others, in North England. But of more 
importance are the surnames ending in son or sen 
(Scan., Son— a son). This ending is distinctively 
Norse, being unknown in early English, whose 
corresponding patron3^mic suffix is ino-^ as in 
HastiJtt^s, Steyning-, Gillirj^ham, and Notting^ 
ham. Names of this kind are Adamson, Benson, 
Gibson, Jackson, Johnson, Nelson, Thomson, 
Scandinavian Stevenson, etc. They are now en- 
Surnames End- countered in every quarter of the 
inginSONorSEN. ^T i, i, x • i. • ^ i 

^ Globe; but m each instance where 

they are traceable to the Scandinavian North, or 
to Middle and Northern England, Scotland, and 
the Teuton Irish, they maybe safely set down as of 
Norse origin. It is interesting to sit down and in 
one's mind run over the long Hst of prominent 
names ending in son. In England and America it 
includes great sailors and soldiers, statesmen and 
presidents. Highest on the scroll of fame among 
English naval heroes, we read the name of Admiral 
Horatio Nelson. His name is undeniably Scandi- 
navian (Scan., Neilsen); his birthplace is the old 
Norse settlement Bumham Thorpe, Norfolk; bet- 
ter still, his family tree points to his Northern 
descent, and his deeds affirm it. The bloodiest 
and most stubbornly fought action of Nelson^s 

10 



130 SCANDIXAVIAX ELEMENTS IX OLD EXGLAXD. 

whole career was the battle of Copenhagen Roads, 

The Case of Ad- "the second of April, 1801. There 

miral Boratio finally, the great seacock met 

e son. j^.g equals. It was a case of 

Dane fight Dane, with honors evenly divided; *'for 

the battle was neither won bv the English nor 

lost b}^ the Danes." The Nelson type of men, in 

whose veins the blood of generations of Vikings 

coursed, were the men that made England all 

povv^erfnl on the sea. 

The early Celtic inhabitants of England were 
but indifferent sailors. Their ships were small and 
un3eaworth3% and the3' appear never to have 
undertaken arA^ extended voyages. When the 
Romans invaded the island, the Britons were ut- 
terly unable to cope with them on the water; and 
yet, the Romans had never been particularly^ at 
nome on the treacherous deep! The Saxons, on 
the river-mouths of German3% vrere no better off. 
As mentioned above (page 9); they could not even 
use ships successfulh' to hinder Charlemagne in 
crossing the Rhine and the Elbe. 

In England, where they mixed with the Jutes, 
the conditions ^vere much better, and seafaring 
and commerce held a position of some importance. 
At length the Viking deluge broke on English 
shores and the transformation, destined to make 
England great, was begun. These sea-rovers 
built the first really seaworthy- ships on record. 
Nations of antiquity had acquired a greater or 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 131 

lesser degree of skillin seacraft in proportion as 
the geographical position of their shorelines per- 
mitted; and the Phoenecians even held the proud 
distinction of being the first to circumnavigate the 
continent of Africa. But for all that their galle\^s 
were built for alongshore carrying-trade and for 
sailing on inland waters rather than to endure 
the storm and tempest of the open ocean. Not so 
the dragons in which the Vikings sailed. They 
Avere large and strong, well suited for furrowing 
the broad Atlantic. 
The Northmen laid the foundation of 'modern 
The Northmen, navigation, by extending com- 
and English mercial intercourse to a degree 
Love for the ttea. ^ r i i i xi 

beiore unknown; and by thus 

uniting parts of the globe which were previotisly 
separated, they in a manner changed the face of 
the whole world.' When they swept down upon 
England, the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants there could 
offer but little resistance. We read of King Alfred 
building fleets— which, by the way, he was forced 
to man, in part at least, w^ith Frisians — in the 
vain hope to cope with the invaders. The islands 
were conquered, the new nation imbued wdth an 
unbounded love for the sea, and in a few short 
generations England had taken her place at the 
head of the maritime powers. This Norse leaven 
worked that now, — 

•'l^rittania needs no bulwarks, 

No towers along the steep. 

Her march is o'er the raonntain wave 

Her home is on the deep." 

10* 



132 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

The sea-rovers who scoured the sea with Haw- 
kins, Drake and Raleigh, and whose chief dehght 
it was to chase the Spaniard from his Main, and 
burn his shipping in the Great King's own ports, 
were Vikings of the blood descended. When in 
1588 the Invincible Armada appeared in the 
Channel, England's only safety lay in her *^vood- 
en walls." And the battling s^Dirits who on that 
CA^entful day so skillfully outsailed and outfought 
the Spaniard, and thereby determined that Pro- 
testantism and freedom, and not Popery and 
despotism, should rule the half of Europe and the 
whole of future America, were — English Vikings. 

We have had occasion earlier in these pages to 
make mention of the influence upon England of 
Danish law. This is the time to dwell a little 
more in full upon that subject. In the Old North 
every freeman was "lord of his own castle." The 
household, including kin, retainers and thralls, 
must needs" abide by his w^ll. In his home-dis- 
trict, he voiced his will at the Thing and cast his 
vote in the manner he deemed best. At the Gen- 
eral Thing of the kingdom, where all freemen, 
great and small, would assemble, he chose his 
king or dethroned him, as the case might be. 
There he voted war and peace, made treaties w4th 
the neighboring small-kings, settled disputes, 
made national laws, etc. 

He loved dearly these institutions of freedom 
and wherever he w^ent into the world he took 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 133 

them with him. He might to a degree give up the 
tongue he spoke, but his laws and free institutions, 
Norse Law in never! The beginning of the 
England. tenth century'' marks the intro- 

duction of Norse, or Danish, laws into England. 
At that time, the Scandinavian settlers in East 
Anglia, and of the coast lying to the northward, 
concluded a treaty with their English neighbors 
which placed the two nations on an equal legal 
footing, by providing for the punishment of 
crime and the payment of fines, each nationality 
according to its own laws.* A decade or two 
later, King Edgar granted further important 
law privileges to the Danes who by that time had 
forced their waj- into the ver^^ heart of England.! 
B3^ degrees Danish law supplanted the Anglo- 
Saxon code in the whole of the country north of 
Watlinga-Straet— the socalled Danelag, i. e. 
^'Danes-law." When the Danish king Knud the 
Great seized the throne he encouraged its intro- 
duction to other sections of England as well. Af- 



*Thus the English were to pay "wite," or fines, according 
to the English law, in pounds and shillings; while the Danes 
were to make compensation for "lah-slit" [i. e. infkac- 
TiON OF THE LAW, from the old Norsk log, law, and .^-lita, 
to rend in two, break], according to the Danish law in 
"marks" and "ores." — Worsaae, pp. 156-157. 

f'Then will I that with the Danes such good laws stand 
as they may best choose, and as I have ever permitted to 
them, and will permit so long as life shall last me, for their 
fidelity, which they have ever shown me." — Edgar's Laws, 
ch. 12. 



134 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

ter the Conquest William the Conqueror ''com- 
manded that these laws should be in force 
throughout the kingdom and consequenth^ even 
in the purely Anglo-Saxon districts, as both his 
own forefathers and those of almost all his 
barons, had been Northmen, who had formerly 
emigrated from Norwa}'."* 

In the north of England the newcomers divided 
the country into TniNG-districts precisely the 
same w^a3^ as in Scandinavia. Memorials irom 
those times may be seen in such names as Thing- 
wall in Cheshire and Tingwall in the Shetlands 
and in the Isle of Man (Scan., Thingvoll, or Thing- 
void — the Thing mound). The towns too had 
their Things, where municipal laws — the By-Love 
(Eng., town-lavvs, from which is derived our mod- 
ern word by-laws) — were enacted. 

In the days of Henry I (1100-1135) England was 
divided into three general law circuits, each with 
a system peculiarh^ its own. They were, Wessex, 
Mercia, and the Danelag.t This might appear 
to contradict what is said of William the Conquer- 
or in relation to the Danish law; but the truth is, 
that in the fourth year of his reign that monarch 



*Worsaae, p. 1^6. 

tin the IL Heury, paragraph I, we read: "Regnum An- 
glie trifarium dividitur in regno Britannie, in AYestsexiam, 
et Mireenos, et Danorum provinciam." And further, in para- 
graph 2: "Legis eciam Anglice trina est particio, ad super- 
iorurn modum; alia enine Westsexie, alia Mircena, alia 
Danelaga est." 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 1 35 

was persuaded to reinstate Edward the Confess- 
or's laws wherever the people preferred them to 
the new system. Nevertheless, the laws of Wes- 
sex and Mercia had by the beginning of the 
twelfth century become so colored by the influence 
of the Danish law, that numerous judicial terms 
and words of Scandinavian origin could never be 
eradicated. In course of time the Great hnglish 
Common Law w^as moulded, embodying all the 
important law customs and usages that had been 
in vogue in the different judicial circuits. And a 
careful, impartial analysis of that famous codex 
illustrates be3^ond a shadow of doubt the very 
extraordinary influence of Scandinavian laws up- 
on England. As an instance, may be taken tlie 
institution of the jury SA'Stem. 

This system has for centuries been a pOAverfu 
agent in preserving popular freedom in L-^n gland, 
and is today as potent an agent in the comnion- 
wealths that have sprung from her. Much has 
The Norse Ori^'-in ^^^^ written variouly explain- 
of the Jury ing its introduction to England. 
^}to em. A few students assert that it is' 

of Anglo-Saxon origin, ascribing its introduction 
to the great King Alfred. Another class, and this 
more numerous, maintains that the Anglo-Saxons 
knew absolutely nothing about trial by jury 
that its original home was Scandinavia, wdience 
it was carried by Rolf Ganger to Normandy, and 
from the latter countrj^ came to England as one 



136 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

of the fruits of the Norman Conquest. Yet others 
aver that it was introduced direct from the North; 
that it came as an inevitable result of the Danish 
Invasion. And to none other than to the old 
Scandinavians should the honor be ascribed. We 
might argue, wdth some effect, that if the Normans 
were able to introduce trial by jur3' to sections of 
France, and later carry it with them to Eng- 
land, was it not to be expected that their brothers 
who invaded England in much greater numbers, 
coming in continuous streams for several centu- 
ries, should have accomplished as much as they? 
As a matter of tact, we have very definite proofs 
of the existence of jur3^ trial before the Norman 
Conquest,* a /2G? this ejcistence of it in the Dane- 
lag, while it was yet entireh^ unknown in the 
Saxon districts. The adherents of the Anglo-Sax- 
on theory of origin have long been in the habit of 
pointing to a certain passage in King Ethelred's 



*Says Worsaae, in speaking of the question: ''It must now 
be regarded as a point quite decided that the earliest posi- 
tive traces of a jury in England appear in the Danelag, 
'^among the Danes established there, and that long before 
William the Conqueror's time, they had brought over from 
their old home the Scandinavian N^VN, or jury, into the 
districts northeast of Watlinga-Straet, colonized by them, 
just as their kinsmen and brothers introduced that power- 
ful safeguard of popular freedom into Iceland and Nor- 
mandy. It would, indeed, have been quite inexplicable that 
the Danes should have given up their peculiar Scandinavian 
N^VN in a country like England, where the Danish law 
obtained by degrees so extensive a footing that, during the 
reign of the first Norman kings, it was still in force in one- 
half of the kingdom."— pp. 164-165. 



SCANDIXAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 137 

laws b3^ way of proving their assertions. But 
this last peg seems now to have been so effectually 
knocked from under their hobby, by the learned 
English editor of those laws, Mr. Thorpe, that 
there can no longer be any room for argument. 
The particular passage so oft-quoted (found in 
Ethelredlll. If 3 and 13; and Ordinance gov- 
erning the Dun-Setas, ^ 3) ordains *'that every 
Wapentake shall have its Thing; that a 'Gemot' 
be held in every Wapentake, and the XII. senior 
Thanes go out, and the reeve with them, and 
swear on the relic that is given to them in hand, 
that they will accuse no innocent man, nor con- 
ceal any guilty one."— "And let doom stand where 
Thanes are of one voice; if they disagree let that 
stand which VIII of them say; and let those who 
are outvoted pay each of them, YI half marks. "— 
*'XII lahmen shall explain the law to the Wealas 
and the English, VI English, and VI Wealas. Let 
them forfeit all they possess if they explain it 
wrongly; or clear themselves that they knew no 
better." Says Worsaae: "A highly remarkble cir- 
cumstance has been too much overlooked, namely, 
that Ethelred's above-mentioned regulation as to 
the composition of the jury is contained onlr in 
the law just cited; which according to its latest 
English editor was intended onh^ for the five 
Burghs and the surrounding Danish districts." 
Again, "that it cannot have been intended for the 
Anglo-Saxon part of England ma^- be immediate- 



133 SCAXDXAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

ly seen from the circumstance that all the fines 
mentioned in it are, without exception, fixed ac- 
cording to the Danish custom in marks and ores, 
and not, after the Anglo-Saxon custom, in 
pounds and shillings."* The twelve lahmen (Old 
Norse, logmandr; Dan., Lagmasnd), as mentioned 
in this law, are conceded to have been of Norse 
orgin. It is worthy of notice that the old Eng- 
lish Domesda^^-Book mentions lahmen only in 
Danish England. What is more, states that the 
lahmen were always Thanes or men of equally 
high rank. Thetext of the law, lastly, makes use 
of a great man^^ judicial terms of Scandinavian 
origin. There are such as, "thrinna XII," (Dan., 
trende T^dvter Eed" — i, e. three times tvv^elve 
oaths); "lahcop," (Old Norse, logkaup); etc. etc.t 
Both Scotland and Ireland received their share 
of the swarming Northmen, here mostl3^ Norwe- 
gians; and, like England, their modern population 
carry not a little infusion of Norse blood. 
Caithness, comprising the northeast portion of 
Scotland, was for ages a Norwegian earldom; and 
the western coast and the outlying islands there, 



*Worsaae, pp. 163-164. 

tit is absolutely impossible in this brief exposition to do 
the subject trial by jury the justice which its importance 
right y demands. Nowhere, it seem to me, have we a bet- 
ter nor a more interesting treatment of it, than in J. J. A. 
Worsaae, The Danes and the Northmen, pp. 151-179. 



SCANDINAVIAx\ ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 139 

were strongly peopled b\^ the Norwegians. The 
The Northmen ^ea lying between Great Britain 

in Scotland and and Ireland was, practicallv 
Ireland. . . ^. . . , ' 

speaking, a Aorwegian lake, 

girth about by settlements, which were especially 
strong in Ireland, where they for ages held undis- 
puted sway over much of the eastern and south- 
ern coasts. There are families in the ancient city 
of Dublin, where a Norwegian dj'nasty of kings 
reigned uninterruptedh^ from 855 until about 
1200, who to this day claim descent in direct line 
from these earl3^ lords of the coast. If one should 
run across an Irishman bearing the name of An- 
derson or some such similar surname ending in 
—son, he may immediately be singled out as of 
Scandinavian extraction. We have, however, no 
space for a lengthy digression upon these nation- 
alities. But, before leaving the present discussion 
ot the Scandinavian Elements in Old Eng- 
land for good, a few words in exposition of the 
remarkable old-time civilization 3'et traceable in 
the Isle of Man, seem not altogether out of place. 

This Manx stronghold lies about midway be- 
tween Cumberland and Ireland. While the G^lic 
tongue has entirely supplanted the Norse once 
spoken there, the island's present inhabitants \^et 
retain their old Scandinavian heritage of customs 
and laws so nearly perfect as to make them our 
best model of the ancient plan of the North. 
A passing survey of the island's geography is suf- 



140 SCANDIXAVLAN ELEMENTS IX OLD ENGLAND. 

ficient to prove the Scandinavian origin of its 
many place names. There are Snasfell (Norw., 
Sneefl eld— snow-mountain), the highest mountain 
on the island, and, as seen by tracing the coast- 
line, beginning at the southeast point and moving 
west and north, Lang Naze (Langnes), Dalby, 
lurby ( Ivarb^^) Point, A^^r Point, Ramsey, Sulby, 
Laxey (Laxaa), Derby Haven, etc. 
That the Norsemen were at one time absolute in 

^, ^ , ^ ^ the island many things be- 

The Isle of Man— ^ r ^i. 

Its Place Names, speak. The assertions of the 
Runes, Thing- sagas are here entirely super- 
' ' fluous. Geographical and other 

monuments are so numerous on Man that it 
might almost be mistaken for a bit of Iceland or 
some comer of Nor\va3^ Thirty-nine grave monu- 
ments in the shape of stone crosses, generally 
bearing runic inscriptions, have been found near 
the old stone kirks, chiefly in the the northern 
section. Many of the inscriptions have been de- 
ciphered as simple Norse epitaphs. At Kirk Brad- 
dan, one reads: "Thurlabr Neaki risti krus thana 
aft Fiaks— bruthur sun Jabrs" ("Thorlaf Neaki 
erected this cross to Fiak — brother, a son of 
Jabr"); or at Kirk Andreas: ''Sandulf ein suarti 
raisti krus thana aftir Arin Biaurg kuinu sina" 
("Sandulf the Swarthy erected this cross to Arn- 
bjorg, his wife.") These and numerous other 
monumental inscriptions of a similar nature con- 
tribute in a high degree to strengthen the chronicled 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 141 

accounts that a purely Norwegian civilization 
flourished here for hundreds of A^ears. But this is 
of the past. 

Something, however, of enduring influence and 
utility remains over — the old Norse constitution 
and the ancient custom of holding annual 
Things. And these, strange as it may sound, are 
held ''on the identical Thing-hill, T^mwald, from 
which, about a thousand years ago, the Nor- 
wegians governed the Sudreyar." (the South Is- 
lands) . When the Isle of Man fell under English 
rule Parliament allowed it to retain its ancient 
law-customs. Under existing conditions, while 
this law-making body enacts laws for every other 
part of the Kingdom, they are of no validity 
whatsoever in the island, should they happen to 
be out of accord with the ancient, existing law! 
Here appears an interesting example of "home 
rule." The organization of the government is 
strikingly similar to that of the Norwegian earl- 
doms which were found in those w^aters at an ear- 
ly date. It acknowledges the supreme authority of 
the English sovereign, as in days of yore, the King 
of Norway. A governor assisted by a council of 
nine comprise the upper house, and in a manner 
correspond to the Norwegian jarl and his advis- 
ers. The lower house, or ''house of ke^^s," con- 
sists of twenty-six members, holding life member- 
ship, and with influence as great as had any Nor- 
wegian Thane. T3^nwald Hill, which stands in a 



142 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN OLD ENGLAND. 

beautiful vale on the west coast, marks the last 
Thing-place existing of all set up by the Scandi- 
navians abroad. It lies there a beautiful green 
mound, rising in terraces, four in all, the top one 
with a circumference of about 200 feet. From 
this summit the old jarls of the "South Islands" 
were accustomed to make their annual proclama- 
tions. Now, 3'early, on St. John the Baptist's day, 
these proclamations are made by the governor, 
w^ho, upon that day, declares all the bills passed 
b3^ the "three estates" of the island to be good 
"Tjmwald Acts," or laws. Thus, the Norwegians 
may be said to have disappeared from the Isle of 
Man; but that love of freedom and that political 
superiority which marked them as unlike other 
men remain and have a lasting monument in — 
Tynwald Hill. 

To recapitulate: The Danes and Norwegians, 
w^ho settled in Great Britain and Ireland, came in 

A Ee-capitu- such numbers as to materially 
lation. influence the future existence of the 
English people. This they accomplished partl^^ by 
developing trade and fostering a love for the sea 
and for navigation; partty by weakening the 
Anglo-Saxon hold upon the countr}^, thtis prepar- 
ing for the advent of their brothers, the Normans; 
and j)artly by upholding certain inherited free 
civil and political institutions. Vv^hich in time be- 
came bulwarks against tyrant kings and their 
creatures, laying the cornerstone to English and, 
later, to American free institutions. 



Scandinavian Elements in the 
United States. 



The eastern counties of England, from the 
Thames northward, have been remarkable in his- 
tory as the British litus haereticam. No other 
section of the country could boast such a vigorous 
growth of Puritan heresy; none, such a readiness 
for strife at threatened freedom's call. The struggle 
between Parliament and King w^as in reality a 
test of strength between East England and West 
England. And the victories at Naseby and Mars- 
ton Moor were won by men from the eld Norse 
shires of York, Lincoln and Norfolk, the Norse- 
Anglican shires of Suffolk and Essex, with Cam- 
bridge, Huntingdon and a few^ others. The Puritan 
The Importance Revolution has been termed ''the 
of the Eastern most critical struggle in all his- 
Countiesinthe „ tt j -^ r -i j • -i- 

Puritan Revolu- tory. Had it failed, civihza- 

ticc; the Part tion would have received a set- 
They Plaj^ed in 

the Puritan Ex- back of most serious consequen- 
cdu8, ^gg^ jjQ-j- alone to England and 

Ameiica but the whole world. ''Had it not been 
for the Puritans," declares an eminent American 
historian, "political liberty would probabh^ have 
disappeared from the world." In this connection 
the Danish conquest of England is seen in one of 



144 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES. 

its most interesting and important faces. For, 
as reiterated time and again above, the Scandi- 
navian counties along the eastern coast v^'^ere the 
back-bone and main-stay of the entire movement. 
And when, in fulness of time, the all important 
exodus to America began, these selfsame counties 
not alone initiated the migration, but they poured 
forth one continuous stream of well-born men and 
women, who settled Plymouth and Massachusetts 
Bay. 

The year 1604 marks the beginning of the 
struggle between James Stuart and the non- 
conformists. About that time, at a conference 
of leading Puritan clergymen, the king exclaimed, 
'*I will make them conform, or I wnll harry them 
out of the land." The former, no tyrant Stuart 
could ever do; as to the latter threat, here he suc- 
ceeded—but little as he dreamed it— to the better- 
ment of the whole world. At the old Norse village 
ot Scrooby the conflict w^as begun. There William 
Brew^ster, the government postmaster, took up 
the dangerous fight in behalf of Puritanism. He 
was materially aided in all his undertakings by 
the non- church Puritan minister John Robinson, 
a worthy of good Scandinavian ancestry, w^ho 
later became the famous Pilgrim pastor. A nota- 
ble third party to this conflict w^as William Brad- 
ford from old Austerfield in Scandinavian York- 
shire; he was destined to become the virtual fath- 
er of the Pilgrim colony in North America. With 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES 145 

the help of these men Brewster organized the first 
independent, or * 'separatist," congregation in 
England. This was in 1606. So bitterly did the 
king persecute the daring heretics, that, following 
Robinson's advice, they fled to Le3^den, Holland, 
which they reached in 1609. 

It is of no use here to repeat the story of the 
Mayflower voyage. This much only w^ould I call 

^, ^ .,. ^ attention to; namely, that out of 

TheSailing^ of , , -, ^ -, -, 

the Mayflower, the hundred odd men and women 
1620. Qjj board the Pilgrim carrier, a 

great many must have been of Scandinavian des- 
cent, for did they not come from the heart of the 
Old Norse settlements! As much ma^^ be said of 
the passengers of the Fortune, 1521, and of the 
Anne and the Little James, 1623; they, likewise, 
were chiefly from the same region. It has been 
truly said that no mere accident gave the name 
of Boston to the present metropolis of Massa 
chusetts, nor named near-lying counties by such 
names as Norfolk, Suffolk, etc. It is of signifi- 
cance, too, that many New England personal 
names of historic prominence are of a purely Norse 
origin and can be traced to the Scandinavian 
section of England. Among these are such well- 
known names as Wenlock Christison, Francis Hig. 
ginson, Anne Hutchinson, Alexander Johnson, 
Abraham Pierson, William Robinson, Marm- 
aduke Stevenson and others. 



11 



146 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES 

A hopeless task would it be now to seek out the 
actual influence exerted by Norse blood in laying 
the foundations to our great American Comnion- 
■wealth. Suffice it to say, that it must have been 
extremely great. Thus we see the importance of 
the Danish invasion of England viewed in a new 
light. For by throwing forward, across the sea, 
a secondary migratory wave, it played a part in 
preparing the North American soil and people for 
Freedom's call. 

This influence is national therefore. Thanks are 
due to the Norsemen for many of our most import- 
ant civil and political institutions. For New Eng. 
land more than Virginia shaped the course to be 
followed by the American people. But even Vir- 
ginia could boast some good Norse blood. Take 
for instance the family -tree of George Washington, 
the foremost personage produced by this free 
American soil. The uncertainty long existing in 

The Probable regard to the EngHsh progeni- 
^candinaviaii tors of the Washington Family, 
George^^^shing- which led to numberless and 
ton. fruitless controversies among 

genealogists, was practically cleared up by the 
publication, in 1879, of The Pedigree and His- 
torj^ of the Washington Faniilj^, by Albert 
Wells, President of the American College for 
Genealogical Registry and Heraldrj^. This 
eminent scholar's position enabled him to obtain 
what without a doubt is the correct pedigree. 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES 147 

His correspondent, a lineal descendant of the Eng- 
lish progenitor, who spent thirty years in gather- 
ing evidence for his work, writes: "If I had not 
taken upon myself the great labor of examining 
those inestimable records, the 'Common Pleas 
Rolls,' the truth of that great man's lineage would 
not have been revealed. They are of immense 
value, and I hope you will make them known to 
3^our countrymen by the publication of a Wash- 
ington History. The pedigree I now send I can 
establish by legal evidence." 

The Family-tree, as recorded in Welles' book has 
its root away back in Danish History. It origin- 
ates, in fact, with an early 'Royal Line of Den- 
mark and is traced through thirty -two genera- 
tions to Thorfinn the Dane, who settled in York- 
shire long before the Norman Conquest.' "The 
descent is traced in Denmark and England, from 
father to son, down through the centuries, includ- 
ing branches in different shires, to John Washing- 
ton, the great grandfather of George Washington 
in twenty generations from Thorfinn; with inter- 
esting personal matter regarding nearly 500 
members of the family and their alliances in 
England and America." George Washington, a 
Dane! This certainly must sound strange to many 
of our American countrymen; and especial- 
ly to those who never think of tracing their own 
family history farther back than to some English 
shire or village. Here, what a field of hidden 

11* 



148 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES 

possibilities lies ready for exploration.* Let the 
American people make a careful study of their 
pedigrees and marvelous will be the results! Yes, 
establish be3^ond a doubt that many of the 
nation's greatest men had their origin in that old 
fountain head — the Scandinavian North. 

The great Teutonic migration is still going on. 
With other peoples, the Scandinavians are yet 
today doing their share of changing the national 
complexion of the United States. At an early day, 
in obedience to a mandate of the immortal Gus- 
tavus Adolphus, the Swedes first turned their faces 
toward America. Since 1638 a continuous stream 
of Norwegians, Swedes and Danes have flocked to 
our w^estern shores. The tide of immigration 
hardty as yet shows any indication of abatement. 
Thus, beginning with the Viking Age centuries 

Modern Nor h- ^S^f '^^^ North has poured its 
men in the best blood in ceaseless streams 
westward into the world, to 
better the world. The scum of a people is not 
in the habit of immigrating. In the case of the 
Scandinavians only the great middle class of work- 
ing people have gone out; for the Northern gov- 
ernments have generally been careful to keep their 
pauper and criminal classes at home, and the 
upper classes, with few exceptions, are too well 



♦For a complete discussion of this interesting subject see 
Albert Welles,THE Pedigree and History of the Wash- 
ington Family, New York, 1879. 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES 149 

contented to think of leaving. In 1900 there were 
in the United States about 3,500,000 Scandi- 
navians. This is counting the immigrated parents 
and their first American-born generation. While 
found in every state in the Union, they are es- 
pecially numerous in the great Northwest, includ- 
ing the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, the two 
Dakotas, Ilhnois, Iowa and Nebraska. They are, 
upon the whole, a conservative class, inclined 
somewdiat toward clannishncss. But they are 
honest and progressive, making the very best 
citizens. Coming, as they do, from the most liter- 
ate countries of Europe, they cannot but exert a 
very great elevating influence in the states where 
they settle. 

Like the New Englanders of old, their faith in 
school and church is unbounded. Institutions of 

Scandinavian- learning, as good as the best in 

Americans as the land. Sprint up where they 
Citizens. . , , . ^ , , . ^ . , 

settle, and their church-sprres 

point heavenward in every settlement. It is our 

proud boast that the Scandinavians in the United 

States have abetter record when it comes to moral 

depravity, than any other nationality represented. 

In 1890 1 out of 1,999 persons in this country 

was a criminal; 1 out of 860 Irish; 1 out of 1,103 

English; 1 out of 2,013 American; 1 out of 2,715 

German; and 1 out ol 5,933 Scandinavian.* 

*See O. N. Nelson. History or the Scandinavians and 
Successful Scandinavian's in the United States, 
Minneapolis, 19.0. 



150 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES 

This certainl3^ speaks well for the latter as law- 
abiding and as disinclined to vicioiisness. Used to 
a great measure of self-government at home they 
take kindly to our democratic form of govern- 
ment, are early naturalized, and take an active 
interest in politics. They fill offices of trust and 
honor, both state and national; and it ma}^ be 
said that no more scrupulous and honorable men 
have served as chief executives in their home states 
or as members of the national house or senate 
than the Scandinavian-Americans. 

Colonel Hans Mattson, in his Storv of an Emi- 
grant, makes use of the following language, 
which is worthy of repetition in full: "It is very 
true that the Scandinavian immigrants, from the 
early colonies of 1638 to the present time, have 
furnished strong hands, clear heads, and loyal 
hearts to the Republic. They have caused the 
wilderness to blossom like a rose; they have 
planted schools and churches on the hills and in 
the valleys; they have honestly and ably ad- 
ministered the affairs of town, count\^ and state; 
they have helped to make wise laws for their 
respective commonwealths and in the halls ot 
congress; they have with honor and ability repre- 
sented their adopted country abroad; the3^ have 
sanctified the American soil with their blood, shed 
in freedom's cause on the battlefields of the revolu- 
tionary and civil wars; and though proud of their 



SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES 151 

Sc^iiidinavian ancestr3^, they love America and 
American institutions as deeply and as truly as 
the descendants of the Pilgrims, the starry emblem 
of liberty meaning as much to them as to any 
other citizen."* 

The modern Norse immigration to the United 
States must by us be viewed as a continuation of 
that important movement initiated so long ago. 
In this wise interpreted, the Norse discovery of 
America ceases to be accidental, and of no conse- 
quence, and is seen to conform to certain laws of 
humanity as natural as an^^ governing the move- 
ments of the planets in their course around the 
sun. The true significance of the discovery of 
America, it seems to me, lies in this that the 
Northmen were fate's chosen agents in preparing 
To Slim up Our Western Europe for the passage 
Arguments. q£ ^j^^ hitherto unsurpassable 

ocean, by inculcating in those people a love for the 
very element they^ formerly held in such abject fear; 
in this that they were strong enough and virtuous 
enough to put that distinguishing stamp upon 
l^vUgland which has made her what she is, and 
which subsequently^ decided the course for the 
United States to follow; in this that they not alone 
were the pioneers on the American coast and that 



*Colonel Hans Mattson, The Stoky of an Immigrant, 
St. Paul, 1890. 



152 SCANDINAVIAN ELEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES 

they prepared the waj^ but that the great move- 
ment which ended in the estabhshment, on the new 
continent, of a nation "conceived in liberty, and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
created equal," can be explained wholly ^nd solely 
in the fortunate blending of the early English and 
men from the Scandinavian North. 



FINIS. e^-J> 



LE 10 



